


The Bee and its Stinger

by reafterthought



Series: A Change in Osamu's Fate [1]
Category: Digimon - All Media Types, Digimon Adventure Zero Two | Digimon Adventure 02, Digimon Wonderswan Series
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Ken still has the Dark Seed, Osamu lives, Relationship Fix-It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-05
Updated: 2014-09-10
Packaged: 2021-03-08 08:42:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 25,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26969188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reafterthought/pseuds/reafterthought
Summary: A speeding car crashes into a pole. An innocent bystander who should have died is spared. Two brothers reconcile - but while that unhappy story looks happier, the Dark Seed is still planted and an evil force is still looking for a way back. That window of opportunity has closed - and so he'll smash a hole through the wall instead.
Relationships: Ichijouji Ken & Ichijouji Osamu | Sam Ichijouji
Series: A Change in Osamu's Fate [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1968055
Comments: 1
Kudos: 7





	1. A Long-Held Grudge

Ken was still mad at him. It was obvious, from the rigid shoulders and the stiff gait and the way he was always at least a metre ahead without looking back. Anyone looking at them would assume they were simply two strangers on a busy road in Tamachi, having never met each other and simply heading for the same destination like many others around them.

And maybe others were. It was a good day for ices after all. Not perfect, but so late in Autumn it was a surprise to find very many warm days at all. And with winter approaching, the opportunities for brain-freezes actually being pleasurable were growing rarer. But it seemed his kid brother was past the age where the temptation of sweets would wash away all ill-feeling.

Osamu sighed and rubbed his temple. He had a slight headache coming on, probably from studying for long periods of time and not sleeping as much as he should be. He really had been looking forward to hanging around with his brother too – but he just had to ruin it by blowing something so little out of proportion.

Obviously, it wasn't so little to Ken though. It was rare for Ken to stay mad at someone, but no-one lacked their breaking point and Ken had obviously been pushed to his. Either that or that little strange device that popped so suddenly out of the computer was far more important than it appeared, but that was near impossible. After all, while Ken had been in his draw and had obviously been playing around with the device, it was inconceivable that he'd managed to figure out its function when Osamu, the genius of the family, had as so far failed to.

Either way though, he was sure it was just Ken's innocent curiosity that led him to take that device from his drawer, and he truly hadn't seen the harm. And what was the harm? Anything breakable was kept beyond his brother's reach anyway, and it wasn't like _he_ had any claim on the thing. So why had he been so angry when he had seen it in his brother's hands? All he could conclude was that it was simply the stress looking for an outlet, a consequence of not spending enough time doing what most kids his age did more of: relaxing. But it had taken more than three days afterwards to coax Ken out of the house with him; he was being unusually stubborn.

This time though, he vowed he would keep his patience and fix this mess. If Ken was mad at him, then there really wasn't any way he _could_ relax, because no-one else would let him. Even their parents saw him as the boy genius instead of a boy who sometimes just needed to chill out, but Ken would just give a doe look and they'd be out on the balcony blowing bubbles or spread across the living room carpet with a board game or running around the park playing soccer. No-one else would do that with him. No-one else _could_ do that with him. And certainly no-one else ever listened to him ranting…though Ken had tried offering his stuffed caterpillar when he was four.

And the fact that he was starting to muddle up simple math calculations spoke very highly about the importance of his relationship with his brother. A silly little device was definitely not worth losing it.

Sadly, Ken didn't seem to see it that way, though that was no surprise. There were only so many times you could blow up on someone without intending to before they start giving back.

'Ken,' he called, seeing the boy about to cross the road. 'Remember to look both sides.'

He wasn't sure whether or not Ken had heard, though he did at least do as he was reminded, making sure there were no cars coming too fast or too close before crossing. Osamu followed, looking both ways himself and wishing Ken had at least waited to hold his hand like he normally did. Still, Ken was eight, almost nine, and probably old enough to cross the road without needing to hold someone's hand to do it.

He noticed Ken reach the curb and then stop, looking up with what appeared to be a faintly bemused expression, quickly replaced by joy. Blinking, Osamu looked up too, expecting to see a plane or a rainbow (even if there wasn't any rain) but finding nothing instead. Puzzled now, he looked back at his brother.

A sudden scream brought his attention back to the road he had stopped in the middle of – and his brother's reaction to himself.

* * *

It was a very odd feeling, being mad at his brother, but Ken couldn't help it. It was a vicious cycle; he felt bad for thinking – even for a moment – that life would be better without him, but at the same time he still clung to his brother's slap and the loss of his trust, which in turn made the spark of hatred entirely justified.

So he knew perfectly well it was childish, but he wasn't quite willing to forgive his brother. Going on about trust like that, and slapping him without even an apology – his lips twisted into a frown and a small bullet of pain shot through his neck at the thought. He shook it off though, remembering his brother did, much to his protest, bring him along for an ice before winter settled in, knowing how much he enjoyed them. Much more than ice- _cream_ , although sadly the weather had to be more particular to enjoy one without the brain freeze becoming too much to bear.

He heard his brother calling at him to be careful, and he sighed. It really was impossible to stay mad forever. He couldn't have meant what he said after all, otherwise he wouldn't be taking him out like this, on their own and without parents…

He really wished his parents would pay more attention to him. And he wished Osamu had picked another time to get mad at him, although he couldn't possibly have known –

He froze, catching site of something in the sky and looking up.

 _Is that..?_ he thought, eyeing the oddly shaped clouds, before smiling like a child whose birthday had come early upon confirming the shape. Wormmon: the first friend apart from his brother that he had ever had. It cheered him up immensely; there was little chance he'd be able to return to the Digital World for awhile – unless he stole the Digivice and he couldn't do that, or Osamu gave it to him and there was little chance, for the other probably wouldn't understand – and it was a comfort to know it, and Wormmon, were still there, waiting for him.

They had promised each other they'd go on a journey the next time they met, to find Ryo. He was probably off on a journey of his own, as safe as could be, but both of them would feel better if they saw the older boy with their own two eyes. Ryo was his third friend after all, and had become almost like an older brother during the Digital World. Someone who looked out for him the same way, scolded him when he did something foolish and comforted him when he was down. Somebody for whom he would do things without thinking –

He winced again as a stronger bolt of pain shot through his neck. It was bothering him again; it had for weeks, though he couldn't pinpoint exactly when it had begun to hurt. Around the time he got sick, he thought, gazing thoughtfully at Wormmon's smiling face. So sick that time had melted into a blur and he could barely remember anything between fighting Milleniummon with Ryo and getting the news from Wormmon and Gennei about the older boy's disappearance, except something very fuzzy about an email that had turned out to be a setup of some kind.

It was after that trip that Osamu had caught him with the Digivice, when the news of the disappearance of one of his dearest friends was fresh in his mind. All in all, it hadn't gone well for either brother, and Ken sighed sadly, looking down again. He was sure Wormmon would be disappointed in him for being mad at his brother for so long. That wasn't kindness at all…but Wormmon had also said he was _too_ kind, to the point where he could get hurt because of it…

He lifted a hand, almost absently, to rub his neck, then snapped around at a sudden scream before biting back one of his own. Osamu was standing in the centre of the road, frozen and staring at an incoming car coming too fast to stop.

Suddenly, he forgot about his own little dilemma. 'Onii-chan,' he cried, bolting across the street and throwing himself on his brother, his body moving too fast for his brain to inform it that he had more than likely just made things worse. 'Watch out!'

* * *

For a moment, Osamu froze. He couldn't help it; it was human instinct…or human fallacy perhaps. It was hardly logical, but perhaps it simply took that long for adrenaline to kick in. But when those precious seconds could make the difference between life and death, it wasn't particularly welcome.

Especially since, by the time his body registered that he needed to move, he was off balance with his little brother firmly attached to his waist. And there was absolutely no way they would both make it off the road safely in time – unless by some miracle the car managed to swerve and avoid hitting them.

He squeezed his eyes shut. He didn't believe in miracles, but he knew his brother did.

Then there were shocked murmurs around him, and hands steering them both away from the main road and he opened his eyes, heart thumping widely, to find the car lodged into a pole and themselves safe.

'Onii-chan! Onii-chan!'

As welcome as the voice was, Osamu winced at its pitch.

'What were you thinking, running across the road like that?' he scolded, and Ken's hands around him immediately loosened. 'I'm sorry,' he added automatically. 'I didn't mean it like that, but –' He put his firm hands on the other's shoulders. 'You could have been killed.'

Ken sniffed, and it was only then his brother realised he was crying. 'I wished you were dead,' he cried, burying himself into his brother's chest. 'And then you – then you –'

He didn't finish the sentence, and Osamu didn't ask him to. Instead, he just held his little brother close as everyone else swarmed around the car – and them.

It didn't occur to him to check on the driver, or the car. What mattered is that it hadn't hit them, because there was no doubt that if one of them got hurt, the other would have had a lot of self-blame to deal with.


	2. Cars and Worms

Oikawa was not pleased. The current stage of his plan should have been a straightforward one. The timing was perfect: not three weeks after the spore had begun to sprout and Ichijouji Ken had had a falling out with his elder brother. It was the prime opportunity to cement those seeds and mould him into the perfect pawn – but he just _had_ to be so soft as to throw himself into the path of the oncoming car and almost undo all of their hard work.

Luckily, Arachnemon wasn't a complete dunderhead and had swerved the car – and scampered before being found in it. However, watching the brothers make up was more than simply frustrating, and how easily the little boy was able to forget his anger with his elder brother – even with the seed feeding it – spelt doom in any further planning containing that boy.

And it was impossible to find the other one; he had, simply put, vanished off the face of the earth.

The monitor stared at him, humming quietly. He had numerous programmes open on it, including a portal to the Digital World through which he had sent the Arachnid. It seemed to reach the limit of what the computer was capable of handling, because the data on the dark seed was taking an age to load.

It was good to know he would be getting a newer operating system at work in the coming weeks, and the old one would make an admirable replacement to his current one. A little extra hardware wouldn't go amiss either; it might be expensive, but well worth the investment.

For the meantime though, he had to tolerate the snail speed of his current system and the frustration that came with a failed plan.

'Surely the seed will start growing again,' he mumbled to himself, wishing he had the time or the resources to be able to keep a close eye on the boy. It wasn't as though he could install security cameras all over the home, and computing hadn't reached the era where it could do the spying by itself. The Digital World lent some assistance, but until he could enter the Digital World himself it would be a small help. And it wasn't as though he could accomplish much by sending Arachnemon or Mummymon into the Ichijouji's bedroom; they were hardly inconspicuous.

Thank goodness he worked with the Ichijouji's father, though unfortunately he had more of a tendency to talk about his other son instead. But Osamu was, without a Digivice, completely useless to him. It was Ken who was a Chosen, with a Digivice and a digimon…and the dark seed.

Now if only that seed would take root. Because if it didn't and he fell sick again…

He scowled, scrolling through the file as it finished loading. There had to be something in there that would help, because he refused to let his dream slip through the cracks of his fingers.

* * *

Nobody could believe it. The car was empty, and as the driver's door was smashed in it was inconceivable someone had managed to leave undetected.

Ken was over his scare (relatively speaking) and was looking curiously at the car. 'Do you think a ghost was driving?' he asked innocently.

Osamu couldn't help but laugh; who could with that cute tone? Sadly though, it wasn't possible that some ghost had been in the driver's seat. Or Fate out to get him – because until Ken had leapt on him, it had looked like he had been on his way to an early grave.

'No Ken,' was all he answered. 'We'll probably see some bloodied guy wandering around.'

He said that without thinking, and Ken whimpered a little. 'I hope not,' he whispered. 'That would be scary.'

He had forgotten his brother didn't like anything remotely picturesque of a horror film. Funny then how he could be said to pity ghosts…unless one looked at his pictures and found them to be the cute sort, reminiscent of an imported cartoon about a friendly ghost called Casper.

'Someone would have noticed,' Osamu pointed out. 'They're hardly inconspicuous.' At Ken's brow furrowing, he quickly amended: 'I mean, it would be pretty obvious.'

'Yeah, I guess so.' Ken put on his "thinking hat", as he so aptly described it. He was still at that age where the process of thought showed on one's face, and in this particular case, quite cutely too. 'But somebody had to drive then…right?' He blinked at his brother. 'Do you think it was a Digimon?'

'Digimon?' Osamu repeated. He'd never heard of those before. He almost asked if they were imaginary friends of his brother's, but thought against it. Since Ken had never mentioned them previously, it was possible it had something to do with the strange device and those two odd instances of flashing lights emitted by his monitor, in which case it might still be a fragile subject and better addressed over their ices…which he needed now more than ever.

It didn't seem Ken had heard his question anyway; instead, he was tugging on Osamu's sleeve. 'I think I can hear the police,' he said, sounding somewhat excited.

Osamu on the other hand groaned. There went those ices, as well as their hopes for a peaceful afternoon.

* * *

Ken's attention had been quite wildly diverted over the past half hour, between Wormmon appearing in the sky and the police grilling them both so thoroughly they had managed to annoy the elder Ichijouji. Ken himself hadn't minded so much; it was something new, and as thus naturally interesting, and beyond that they were paying attention to him as something more than a little figurine by his brother's side. Not that he wasn't proud of Osamu's achievements (even though he didn't understand all of them), but it was nice for adults to be asking him questions for a change.

Generally speaking, it was Wormmon asking the questions. And that thought reminded him to look up once they had finally managed to leave the scene behind (and Osamu managed to convince them that neither of them were in any way injured – whether physically or mentally – and they didn't need an escort home).

That also apparently reminded Osamu to ask as well. But before that…

'I'm sorry for hitting you.'

Ken stopped walking until a light push from Osamu sent him going again. Naturally, they didn't want to linger. It was noisy, now that a tow truck had come as well to remove the battered car, and the police were now trying to find out the identity of the driver.

The younger Ichijouji immediately felt guilty, remembering how he had felt and what he had said – and clung to.

'I'm sorry too,' he mumbled, eyes watering a little. 'I didn't want you to disappear. Really, I didn't.'

'Silly.' And there was a quick ruffle of hair. 'I knew that.' And Osamu quickly changed the topic; he wasn't the sort of person who could really handle emotional scenes. He was book-smart, but hardly people-smart…though he had quickly learnt how to act in the general society. 'So what did you see in the sky?'

'Wormmon,' Ken answered happily, more than willing to talk all about his new friend from the Digital World now that their disagreement was shoved behind them. 'He's my best friend. And afraid his brother might misunderstand, he quickly added: 'and so are you, and Ryo-san too…' His smile dimmed as he mentioned Ryo's name.

Osamu smiled, but shook his head at his brother's rambling. 'Best normally means only one.'

'Doesn't have to be,' Ken said stoutly. 'That's not very fair when you have to pick.'

* * *

Eventually, they managed to get their ices, a simple vanilla for Osamu and a multitude of bright colours for Ken. And by the time Ken's dish contained a puddle of liquid a colour neither could name and Osamu's was about dry, Osamu more or less understood what – or rather who – Wormmon was.

It didn't mean he could easily accept it though.

'You went through the computer?' he asked sceptically.

Ken shook his head, waving his spoon around before dipping it back into the dish. Even melted, the ices were delicious after all. 'I went through the _Gate_.' He emphasised the last word. 'I know it's crazy, but it's the Digivice. It opens the Gate somehow. I can show you even!' His voice rose excitedly, and Osamu quickly shushed his brother. Anyone listening into their conversation would think they were both crazy.

And maybe they were, but no-one knew Ken as well as Osamu did…except maybe this Wormmon he had never met and this Akiyama Ryo he couldn't for the life of him remember. Though what Ken had said defied almost every law of science in existence, Osamu knew his little brother really believed. He knew what Ken's made up stories sounded like and this was definitely not one of them – so it was either reality or an impossibly vivid dream, the latter less likely than the former.

And Ken, after establishing he had gotten that point across, was happily chatting about his adventures.

Osamu had to admit that if he ever got quizzed on the material, he would probably fail. It wasn't though he wasn't trying to pay attention, but things that didn't conform to logic he found very difficult to grasp and therefore remember. But it was Ken, and it was important to him, so he continued to listen carefully – and be suitably horrified every time he heard about his little brother getting into a dangerous situation.

And Ken was more than happy to tell it all. Chatting about the friends he had made and the enemies he had fought and some Milleniummon who sounded like a real jerk – albeit a childish jerk.

And all the while his melted snack continued to warm up and the sun slunk away beneath the horizon.


	3. A Little Digivice

Osamu frowned at his top drawer. It was closed, but that didn't change what was inside. Most weren't particularly important; they were more things he reached for when he needed them. Spare exercise books. Spare paper. Spare pens, pencils, rubbers, rulers, staple pins and butterfly clips. Then there was the little sliding puzzle Ken had gotten him for his birthday that he played with when he needed a breather, plus a few odds and ends he tinkered with in his spare time. And lastly, the Digivice that had been initially intended to enter that very same place.

That was before Ken getting mixed up with it, and to be honest Osamu had no idea whether he should give the device to his little brother so he could return there at will, hang on to it so he would at least know when Ken disappeared, or get rid of it because of the inherent dangers he faced. Fighting monsters more than twice his size to save the world? That wasn't something an almost nine year old should be doing in his opinion, and it didn't sit well with the older brother part of him that Ken was marching into that sort of trouble.

He was still briefly considering the alternative, but thought it to be unlikely. The consequences of that would surely have seeped into his normal behaviour if that was the case, and now that the two brothers were past their little argument, Ken was as kind and understanding as ever. Asking for some money for fundraising chocolate once and then not again when their parents didn't hear, although Osamu had and later slipped him 200 yen. The next day Ken brought a slightly more expensive – and tastier –s bar he had been expecting and split it with his elder brother.

It would have been nice to enjoy it more, but he had been in the middle of something and sadly had to scorf it down. Still, chocolate was the sort of thing that tasted almost heavenly even when swallowed whole.

Neither of them had mentioned the Digivice then, although Ken had looked extremely quickly towards the drawer. He hadn't asked though, and Osamu was finding himself reluctant to offer.

Part of him was very concerned as to what sort of world it was. Ken's description made it sound like a fairy-tale land, where good always triumphed over evil and the hero (or heroes) were pure and naïve. In truth though Osamu thought those were the sorts of people who had difficulty surviving in the real world. They also reminded him of Ken – and therein lay his evidence as well. Ken's world far too often revolved around others, so much so that it was often difficult to see where the interests of the world ended and where Ken's own began. Like how diligently Ken studied when Osamu was occupied with his own books, and how he struggled to push his marks to the top of the learning curve. Or how he played with the tracks in the playroom on the ground floor of their father's work when the family went to visit – for often Osamu found himself swamped with admirers. Or how Ken weeded the garden with his mother and claimed to enjoy it…though Osamu suspected that that at least had to be for want of his mother's company than for want of the weeding itself.

Osamu didn't know when – or where – it had started. Maybe from all parents wanting their children to do their best at school – and his best had simply amounted to this. It would have been easier for Ken if his best hadn't set an impossible threshold – maybe easier on their parents too, because it did seem like they didn't know what to do with either of their children. But Osamu couldn't imagine himself still existing without the sweet image of innocence that was Ken.

Until less than a week ago, when he had snapped – and Ken had snapped right back. It had been so shocking that he had simply stared in silence as the other stormed off, because Ken really was like a sponge at times, collecting his ill-feelings and depositing them somewhere without anyone – not even he himself – noticing. The sort that could forgive anyone easily enough, could try and make friends with the most unlikely of people (which was what had prompted his own interest in martial arts like judo and kendo to begin with), and could go on without even realising they hadn't reached the inner surface of their heart where their true desires lived.

In truth, if this Digital World was a place that would lead him to grow up without losing the kindness that defined him, then he really shouldn't have a problem with it. But his problem went beyond the inherent dangers – and the fact that he wasn't there to protect him –

Actually, that was the crux of the issue: his absence. Because it sounded like a world where society ceased to exist, where only a few humans stood and they had to prove their worthiness to the true citizens of that land and fight for whatever honour they were given, not only with their minds but their hearts and souls as well. A place where people weren't ranked at schools, where it seemed one's life was set by the grades they made and the names they took…for already people were asking and presuming about his future, a future that was a good seven years away at the very least.

Funnily enough, Ken had pretty much hit the nail on the head, but no-one really noticed that. He hadn't said it to anyone else but Osamu after all, but Osamu couldn't help but think a policeman was a pretty good role for him. Not necessarily one dictated by academia, but a good role nonetheless. Just not one Tokyo would expect from their resident genius.

It was those expectations that were entrapping, but Osamu wasn't naïve enough to believe any other world could be free from that. Still, he would essentially be starting from scratch in such a world, and part of him longed to be able to at least escape there – for a time. Like a holiday resort, where the hottest part of summer could whistle away. Part of him envied his brother to be able to go there when he apparently could not; nothing had happened when he touched the Digivice after all but the reaction with Ken had been instantaneous. A dark bitter part of him wondered what he lacked that his brother apparently possessed. The rest of him was happy for his brother, but still wanted a part of that world. Somewhere away from the one where he lived, where it seemed expectation and routine was dominant.

And then there was the part of him which had difficulty in believing it still. While the possibility of other worlds wasn't exactly outlandish, it seemed inconceivable that a little kid had managed to wander into it when no-one else had. Billions of yen went into finding the possibility of other worlds, and years of research and overall hard work. Sure, serendipity played a role as it often did with major discoveries, but nonetheless it was a minor role. Luck favoured the prepared after all.

And then there was simply the fact that he was the older brother of the pair, and older brothers simply didn't like seeing their younger brother (or brothers as it may) grow up.

He thought about it all, weighing the pros and cons in his mind as the Digivice burnt a metaphorical hole through his drawer chest. And eventually he concluded that while he wasn't as good a person as his little brother, he couldn't stop the other from visiting his other friend.

Though he would have to put his foot down when it came to parading around the world; he'd go mad one way or the other.

* * *

'Really?!'

Osamu winced as Ken's voice seemed to reach an all-time high.

'Yes,' he sighed. 'Really, but –' He stopped, almost expecting the other to burst with excitement, but instead finding his little brother looking at him expectantly. 'No spending more than a few hours there – max. And I want to know when you're going so at least I know where you are, and no talking to any strange…Digimon, was it?' Ken nodded, though he looked a little muddled. 'And no getting into unnecessary fights and don't go making friends with everyone you see either –'

'I'm getting confused,' Ken confessed. 'I can't help it if someone wants to fight.'

'No, I suppose you can't.' Osamu sighed again; it seemed he did a lot of that, but explaining what he was thinking was always difficult. 'Though you could help trying to be friends with drug addicts.'

Ken furrowed his brow. 'I don't think the Digital World has drugs,' he mused.

'Or evil Digimon,' Osamu amended.

'But Wormmon said they weren't always evil.' Blue eyes peeked up innocently. 'Maybe if they had friends, they wouldn't be so bad. Even Milleniummon seemed so lo – ' He suddenly cut off, wincing and rubbing the back of his neck.

Osamu stepped forward and pushed the hair back, frowning when he found nothing under searching fingertips. 'Were you leaning too far forward?' he asked.

'I might have been,' Ken confessed.

'You know what will happen if you don't sit up straight,' the elder Ichijouji scolded lightly.

Ken nodded, wide eyed and no doubt thinking of the Japanese retelling of the Hunchback of Notre Dame. 'I'll try to remember,' he promised. 'It's just awkward to sit like that sometimes.'

It was; Osamu could assent to that, having been guilty many a time of bending over his books and winding up with a sore neck or a sore back afterwards. 'But promise to tell me whenever you go to the Digital World, and promise to be careful.'

'I promise,' Ken said solemnly, knowing his brother was serious. And his face mimicked the expression so accurately that if Osamu was any less composed a man – or a boy more accurately – he would have collapsed on the floor in a fit of giggles, because there was something indescribably cute about seeing your own face three years younger and reflected back at you with an innocence long escaped.

'Alright, alright, you can have it.' Laughing, he put the device into Ken's eager hands. 'Just don't make me regret this.'


	4. Long Second, Short Second

Osamu was tempted to take back his word, but a happy Ken was a Ken that was impossible to deny. Still, he couldn't help but find the sudden bounciness pricked needles of a sort into him. Maybe the feeling was anxiousness; it couldn't be irritation after all, since all he was doing was turning on a computer.

And it seemed the compute had never taken so long to load. But it did, finally, and Ken eagerly pointed his Digivice at the screen. Osamu felt that compulsion again: to snatch it away from his brother, to lock it somewhere safe, or better yet to get rid of it entirely – but he still remembered that angry tear-stained face he'd gotten just for slapping it out of his hand. And for what? He had known nothing of the device then, and a lot more know – things that might have been a legitimate reason to ban the object, if Ken hadn't proven himself more than capable of handling the inherent danger.

And who was he to stop Ken from seeing his friends? Just because _he_ didn't have any friends besides his little brother –

That settled it; those annoying pricks were jealousy and nothing else.

He kept on telling himself that as Ken vanished into the computer.

* * *

Ken was overeager and tumbled into the grass instead of landing on his own feet, but he was feeling so giddy all he did was roll some more and laugh. Then his promise to Osamu stabbed him gently with guilt, and he sat up. The sky was clear: the sun grinning down at him from its lone space in the sky, and Ken waved at it. It might be a Digimon after all; neither XV-mon nor Stingmon had been able to fly high enough to check. Even if they had tried, though Ken suspected Ryo had asked them simply to humour him.

Still, it had been rather funny to watch when their little quest turned into friendly competition between the pair.

 _Back to the present,_ Ken told himself sternly, shaking his head. If he spent the whole afternoon looking at the sky, not only was he liable to get attacked by some rogue Digimon, but he wouldn't get to spend any time with Wormmon.

He looked around, recognising the bright coloured blocks that made up Primary Village. He could see little dots of black, purple and red – the baby digimon he assumed, chasing after a ball while a fuzzy figure watched. Probably Elecmon; after all, he was never far from his charges, although Ken found himself really too far away to know for sure.

He checked the other side; there was a forest with short stubby trees, light forcing its way to the forest floor to chase away the gloom. But he could see nothing through the trunks: no Woodmon pretending to be trees (though he didn't think he could pick them out anyway), no hungry Kuwagamon nor naughty in-training Digimon playing about on the forest floor.

Static sounded, and Ken jumped a bit, before realising it coming through the TV monitor he had just passed through. He almost tripped backwards over it in his haste but managed not to – and a good thing too, otherwise he would've given his brother an unnecessary scare. Instead, he managed to sink to his knees rather smoothly, and ignoring the grass that would probably stain his shorts, he said brightly: 'Everything's fine, Onii-chan. And I'll be back real soon with Wormmon too.'

Except the static continued – slow and dull – and Osamu's face remained frozen.

'Oh, right.' Ken looked at his knees, before up at the screen. 'I forgot, time moves much faster here…' Though it seemed slower than it had been the first time; they hadn't heard any static then. Ken wondered what the difference was now, if he could hear static, then shook his head. Osamu was the genius, and Ryo the computer whiz. He'd have to ask Osamu later – unless they bumped into Ryo in the Digital World.

It was alright either way; Osamu couldn't spend time worrying about him if no time passed, even if it was somewhat unnerving to leave the TV as though someone had pressed "pause" on his brother's face…

Still, it somehow seemed like a bad omen, and Ken knew his brother had been right in that he shouldn't have been watching that scary movie the previous week. He had been mad then, and not at all inclined to listen to good advice – but now it seemed karma had appeared for a little payback.

* * *

Ken wondered where Wormmon would be. Who knew how much time had passed in the Digital World after all, and Digimon didn't have the convenience of being a phone call away. _Then again_ , Ken thought as he wandered through the Primary Village, _Wormmon didn't know when I'd show up that first time either_.

Baby Digimon covered the streets, bouncing about as though someone had knocked down the bin of soccer balls in school. Ken couldn't help but grin at the sight of them – though he hurriedly wiped the smile off his face when Elecmon came running past. And even if Wormmon wasn't at Primary Village like when they first met, he could still have a pleasant chat with Elecmon – once the other stopped chasing after the Poyomon.

He missed a step when a stray baby bounced across his path and tumbled into the blocks. He laughed at that; everything in the Primary Village – save the cradles and some of the little things – were nice and soft, so falling against them didn't hurt at all. Rather, it was just like playing about in a foam pit or a land of marshmallows – not that he had ever been to a land of marshmallows before. He wondered if such a place even existed.

First though, he wondered how to get himself right side up again. It was awfully dark all of a sudden, so he must have gotten stuck somewhere. Maybe he'd punched a hole in the soft cloth? It certainly did tear easily. Or maybe he'd knocked down a stack without meaning to, or –

'Ken?'

'Wommph?' He'd meant to say "Wormmon", but that was a little difficult with his face squashed against – the ground? He finally planted his hands and pushed himself up.

 _So I landed on my face, huh._ Then he grinned and shook it off; there was only Wormmon, and they could have a good laugh together.

Except Wormmon was crawling towards him as far as his many legs could carry him – Ken had never actually counted _how_ many – and had jumped onto his shirt soon after. 'Ken!' the worm cried, burying his face into the uniform shirt. 'You're back! You came back!'

'Just for a visit,' Ken said, though inside he was getting giddy all over again. 'But I can come back any time I want.'

'That's a relief.' And Wormmon snuggled against his partner, and Ken held him close, remembering the feel of them fitting together all over again.

* * *

They sat on the hill, looking at the clouds roll past. There hadn't been any earlier that afternoon, but Elecmon said a storm was rolling in from the east. For the moment though, they were just light grey clouds, few and far between. The perfect thing to watch on a nice quiet afternoon with a friend.

'Wormmon,' Ken suddenly said, remembering something. 'How did you appear in the sky anyway?'

'Hmm?' Wormmon twisted in Ken's lap to look at him. 'I don't think I did.'

'You didn't?' Ken looked curiously at his partner, but the worm Digimon didn't appear to know what he was talking about. 'I thought I saw you, that day Onii-chan and I – umm – ' Somehow, he didn't want to tell his partner what a brat he'd been. Now that it was all behind him, Ken was ashamed of the person he had been in that frame of time: those moments where he had been mad at his brother. Childishly mad – and Osamu had almost died with that hate.

'Ken?'

'It's nothing, Wormmon.' And Ken held his partner tight. 'Just me being stupid.'

'But you're not stupid.' The blue eyes tilted adorably up. 'I know when something's bothering you, Ken. Did you have a fight with your brother?'

'No!' Ken exclaimed, far too loudly, before reddening and correcting himself. 'I mean – well, we did fight, but that was straight after I left here.'

Wormmon listened patiently, and Ken found the story spilling out, despite himself. But it was so easy to talk to Wormmon, to tell him everything that was bothering him, and hear some words that made his heart fill warm and fuzzy at the end of them. Osamu was a little different, Ken supposed; Osamu – and Ryo too…they were harsher. They taught him how to live in a harsh world: Osamu the real one, and Ryo the digital. But Wormmon…Wormmon was gentle and kind, just like he said Ken was. And Wormmon made sure Ken would always be like that.

'Yeah…' Ken sighed, looking up as the clouds grew darker and more in number. 'We'll always be together. And we'll find Ryo again as well…and maybe Onii-chan will find a partner of his own someday too.'

* * *

Osamu barely had a chance to blink before another flash of light echoed and Ken was back again, grinning cheerily. 'I'm back,' he said, before rushing on: 'Wormmon wanted to come as well, but I told him he wouldn't like it much here. And time moves much slower, so his home might not be liveable once he gets back, even though I'm sure he'd love 'kaa-san's cooking –'

'Slow down, Ken-chan.' Osamu held up a hand and, by some miracle, managed to keep his voice straight. He was torn between surprise (because even if he had been forewarned, seeing something was _very_ different to hearing about it) and laughter (because an over-excited Ken never ceased to amuse him). 'There wasn't any trouble, was there?'

'Nope,' Ken said brightly. 'Not at all; it's hard to believe so much time has passed. Elecmon and Wormmon were just the same as always! And so was the Primary Village! Even though it's been months and months since I was last there. Which reminds me, if I can here static from there, how much faster is time going?'

'I wasn't under the impression you were bringing back homework for me,' Osamu said lightly, though he frowned a little when he looked more closely at Ken, who had turned back to the computer screen. 'Ken, what's that under your hair?'

'Huh?' Ken turned back, then felt his skull and neck. 'Did some of Wormmon's Silk Thread get on me? I don't think he used it for anything.'

Osamu stepped closer and checked as well, but found no trace of that red spot he'd seen earlier. Or he thought he had seen it anyway; he could have imagined it, he supposed.


	5. Ballpark

The Digital World was out of reach twice-over for him, but Oikawa refused to accept that. So he persisted, and he found windows through which he could watch that other world.

It was self-torture, for that world to be so close and still unreachable, but he endured it. It was a kind of addiction for him, a necessity: he _had_ to keep on staring at that world, keep on trying to break through that barrier.

His fingernails had already worn down to the bed because of his impatient nibbling at them. But if anyone saw the habit they did not comment, and he was preoccupied with other matters. Like what would happen now that the Dark Spore had arrested its growth inside the Ichijouji boy.

His eyes narrowed as he stared at the boy and his Digimon, playing just like innocent children under the afternoon sun as though they were in a park in the Real World instead of the Digital one. But Oikawa had spent years studying the Digital World and knew its synchronicity with the Real World, and how his computers could image from that other world in real time.

Some years ago, it would have been beyond even him, but technology had advanced far since. If it was possible to observe a virus being destroyed by the body at a speed assessable to the human brain, then observing the Digital World whose time sped so much slower was possible as well. And so he had proven, and continued to prove as he watched – watched little Ichijouji Ken smile and laugh and waste all his hard work.

The Dark Spore was there, on his neck. Oikawa could see it clearly when he paused the screen. It burned red at times, whenever the boy laughed, whenever his cheeks flushed bright red. It was a sign that the Dark Spore could not feed, that it was starved of anger and hatred and all the negative emotions it – _he_ – needed for his ultimate goal.

He hit the desk, causing pencils and other odds to jump. The boy had been perfect! The overshadowed little brother of a genius – but he was too naïve, too kind, too forgiving. That perfect opportunity – in which he'd given in to his inner darkness and lashed out at his brother – had been lost in their sickeningly sweet reunion, and another opportunity would be far in coming. When he'd heard those words, that wish, he thought the trials were over.

Arachnemon had bungled it. And now, it seemed there was no hope of salvaging it.

'I'll have to make do with the other one,' he muttered to himself, typing rapidly and bringing up many smaller screens on his monitor and searching them. 'Still, the energy will be useful…'

His stomach ached, as though lusting for that very energy and knowing it was still too far away.

'Be patient,' he said absentmindedly, but not even he realised to whom he spoke.

The recipient did though, and it settled down in the depths of the other's body. It was disappointing, yes, but a delicious snack was something he could wait for. And if his previous loss taught him anything, it was patience.

He would wait, and the Digital World would be all the sweeter when it ended. The Chosen would crunch and bleed under his fangs – and if little Ichijouji Ken had outlived his usefulness, then he would be the first blood to be sampled, and the first flesh to be devoured.

* * *

Osamu opened a book, then shut it with a sigh. His attention kept wandering off. Ken was at the park now, apparently having plenty of energy to burn after a "quiet" afternoon in the Digital World – which sounded like it had gone without incident, but Osamu couldn't know. Somehow, the whole idea still made him uncomfortable. And the red mark that had faded on his neck – as though Ken had hit it somewhere and forgotten…

He tried opening the book and reading further, but it was hopeless. Finally, he put the book away and stood up, staring at the park in the distance through his window. From that height, it seemed like a large green blotch in the distance, surrounded by buildings and moving cars.

Suddenly, it seemed very irresponsible for him to have let Ken go off by himself. And his excuse – that he needed to study – seemed not only egocentric but false as well. He had gotten nothing done since Ken had left. It seemed he would be getting nothing done either.

He glanced around, wondering if the soccer ball was still in his room or Ken had taken it. It was still under the bed – which meant Ken must have had other plans at the park. Possibly playing on the swings, or running about with other kids Osamu cared little about. Or getting into trouble –

Osamu shook his head and berated himself. Ken was smarter than that, even if he did try to make friends with every person in existence, no matter who they were. If the kid wound up getting taken hostage because he tried to help a criminal –

'That's it,' he said to himself. 'I'm going to drive myself crazy like this.'

He picked the soccer ball up, switched his slippers for sneakers, and headed out.

* * *

Once Ken got to the park, he was bored. It had seemed like a good idea at the time; Osamu did need to study, and Ken didn't think he could focus on a book at the time. So the park had been good; maybe he'd bump into a few of the neighbourhood kids and they could play a game of tag, or the swings would be free and he could try to beat his old record.

But neither of these things were to be; the swings had been occupied by a couple of high school girls, and he couldn't see anyone his age. It was strange to see no kids around, but maybe they'd come and gone while he had been in the Digital World. Or when he'd been having tea and cake with his brother and telling all about his afternoon with Wormmon.

He swung on the monkey bars for a bit, but when his palms started to burn he gave up and found a tree instead. He sat under it for a bit, finding worms in the soft soul and telling them all about Wormmon, but then a nearby bird squawked and they all ran off. So he climbed the tree instead.

He found a birds nest a little way up. A different sort of bird, he thought, as these were small and brown and he was sure the other had been a crow. Of course, Osamu would know better – but Ken was no good at mimicking sounds, so he would have to just accept his guess. It wasn't so important anyway: the baby chicks were adorable, chirping at him as the mother glared from a higher branch, twig in her mouth. He thought it was the mother anyway; he didn't know how one went about distinguishing genders when it came to birds, but he imagined mothers would always seem more protective. After all, it was their mother who had cried over the both of them when the police had dropped them home, and their father who, worry lacing his tone, had scolded the both of them fiercely for not looking both ways before they had crossed the road.

Ken made sure to look both ways _twice_ on his way to the park. He'd even looked before climbing the tree, remembering the time a Locomon had ridden straight into one in the Digital World.

'I won't hurt you,' he said softly, to both the chicks and their mother. 'I'm just looking. See?'

The mother bird dropped the twig and squawked at him, then flew off. Ken almost waved, but he needed both hands to balance, though he almost let go anyway when he suddenly heard his brother's voice.

'Onii-chan!' he cried, grabbing a lower branch and twisting so he could see his brother. 'You startled me!'

'So did you!' the other yelled back. 'Get down from there!'

Ken came down slowly, his brother helping him half the way – even if it was unnecessary. 'Wormmon showed me how to climb trees,' he said. 'It's fine. Really.'

'I remember you saying that right before collapsing in my room,' Osamu replied dryly. 'Though still, you shouldn't be climbing without someone to watch you. What if you fell? Wormmon's not in this world after all.'

Ken nodded slowly, eyes brightening slightly. 'I'm sorry, Onii-chan.'

Osamu petted his head. 'Now, don't give me that,' he scolded. 'Must you cry every time you're sorry?"

'I'm not crying,' the other said indignantly, rubbing his eyes and coming away dry before realising his brother was grinning at him. He grinned back. 'Have you finished studying?'

'I – err – ' That caught Osamu off guard a moment, before he offered the soccer ball under his arm. 'It was too boring to keep my mind on. How about a game instead?'

'Okay,' Ken agreed. 'But you'll finish studying after dinner, right?'

'Sure, Ken-chan,' Osamu said, if only so Ken wouldn't figure out the _real_ reason for coming. 'Pass the ball here.'

Ken dropped the ball and kicked it as hard as he could. It passed Osamu by an arm's length and rolled to the see-saws.

'Cheeky,' Osamu muttered good-naturedly his brother's grin as he chased after it.


	6. Forgotten Sickness

They had developed a bit of a routine, and Osamu found himself getting more and more engrossed into the Digital World. The Digivice wouldn't work for him of course, and despite the seeds of jealousy in his heart, a part of him was happy his brother had an experience to truly call his own. He'd met some of Ken's friends anyway; once they'd worked out the flow of Digital World time was slowing down, Ken had brought Wormmon to visit.

Naturally, that had taken a few weeks to work out, between measuring fluxes in static when the gate opened and closed, and having Wormmon watch the clock on the other side. They'd worked out that, if the gate was kept open, time passed just slower than the speed of audible sound – enough so for them to hear static. When the gate was closed though, months would pass between one visit and the next. Those months were getting slower though: they'd started with almost a year and it had been reduced to just a couple of months – and, as Wormmon pointed out, time wasn't of much consequence in the Digital World in times of peace. Digimon grew by experience, not by age, and their memories far surpassed the capacities of the human mind.

Osamu found his first meeting with Wormmon to be a very interesting one – beginning with him calling the green worm "Wormmon-chan", apparently the same as Ken had on his first encounter. Wormmon had actually been quite flattered; Osamu believed that was the first time he'd seen anything other than a human actually _blush_. He'd also shared a few stories that Ken had conveniently left out – like when the boy had gotten himself stuck in a swamp, and a time he'd been sick – which Ken swore never happened quite convincingly, much to the green worm's confusion.

Osamu looked between Digimon and human, the worm's mandible drooping as it sat on four legs. 'You…don't remember, Ken-chan?' he asked. 'After we defeated Milleniummon. You left as soon as you healed.' His blue eyes were wide and worried, and Osamu had trouble believing that Wormmon could lie about something like this.

But Ken was shaking his head, his own eyes wide too and a hand coming up automatically to scratch his neck. 'I…don't remember that,' he said, his voice quiet with wonder. 'Why wouldn't I remember something like that?'

Wormmon shifted uncomfortably as Osamu pulled Ken's hand away from his neck, making a mental note to check it properly later, in case there was a small bite or something he'd missed. 'Maybe it's for the best,' the worm-Digmon said. 'You were in a lot of pain.'

It hadn't been the best ending to their visit, and Ken had had a nightmare that night and come into his brother's room, and the pair slept on the floor with their blankets that night.

The next day, their parents headed out on a business meeting. They'd be gone overnight, which meant the two brothers had the apartment to themselves for a day and a half. Ken had, much to Osamu's worry, forgotten both the news of his sickness and his nightmare, and was eager to have Wormmon over again. Osamu relented on the condition that he'd have a talk with the Digimon first.

'Is Wormmon in trouble?' Ken asked, eyes wide with worry.

Osamu assured Ken that his partner was not in trouble, and it was more like the discussion a big brother had with their younger sibling's friends. 'You know,' he said, 'the big bad brother going macho to make sure his kid brother doesn't get hurt.'

He ruffled his brother's hair and Ken giggled. 'Isn't it a bit late for that?' he asked, though he accepted it.

It _was_ late for that, but Osamu had a different topic for their talk in mind, and when Ken was safely out of earshot and occupied with cutting star shaped cookies from the neatly rolled dough, he explained what had happened the previous night.

'I don't understand it,' Osamu admitted. 'He forgot everything again after that nightmare, as if nobody'd told him he'd been sick in the first place.'

Wormmon fiddled his front legs, much like a human would wring their hands together. 'I don't understand either,' he said. 'But if Ken-chan's better now, does it matter?' His eyes were big again, and worried, shimmering and almost crying and Osamu really didn't want a crying worm on his hands. Explaining to Ken what he'd said would be the least of his worries; he couldn't even deal with _Ken_ crying for Kami's sake. 'I can remember for both of us.'

'That's true.' And there wasn't exactly anything that could be done, even if it worried Osamu his brother was missing some memories. For someone so young to go through something _that_ traumatic…and his own kid brother no less… No wonder he'd snapped that day in the study; no wonder he'd hated him in that moment, wished him dead.

The air seemed very chilled suddenly, and Osamu shivered.

'Wormmon?' he asked suddenly, disregarding the "-chan" honorfic for seriousness. 'Just how dangerous is the Digital World? And the honest answer please; not the child-proof version you two have been feeding me so far.'

Because while Ken had been perfectly truthful, this recent news made him think that wasn't all there was to tell.

Wormmon considered the question. 'Not much different from the human world,' he confessed. 'After a fashion,' he hurriedly added, seeing Osamu about to point out there weren't any literal gigantic child-eating monsters in this world. 'The Digital World gets all of its fundamental information from the human world, but it maintains a level of innocence that prevents adults from ever entering. It's a world like this one, but one for children.'

It sounded frightening and wondrous all at once, a world where reality didn't matter, where expectations were totally different, where there existed a friend so compatible – like Wormmon for Ken.

'I hope you can come too, one day, Osamu-san,' Wormmon said, as though reading his mind, before sniffing at the air. 'Ken-chan isn't trying to cook, is he? He burnt the fish on Meramon last time.'

Osamu took a while to remember what a "Meramon" was, but he managed to stop Ken from burning the cookies without that piece of knowledge. In any case, the main reason for talking to Wormmon had been accomplished: Wormmon wouldn't bring the topic up again around Ken, because it had been done once and accomplished nothing.

'Well,' he said, grinning despite the sombre atmosphere from before. After all, only Ken could make cookies cut simply with a star-shaped cookie cutter all different shapes.

* * *

The Ichijouji brothers had closed the gate, as Wormmon was staying over for the night, so a month and a half had passed by the time he returned to Primary Village.

To his surprise, Primary Village was packed to the brim and in chaos. Digimon of all kinds were there, from the eggs and Digimon at their fresh stages that were an old sight to an Ultimate-levelled MarinAngemon which was new. In fact, Wormmon didn't remember _ever_ seeing a MarinAngemon before, and he spent a few minutes in awe as he saw several other never-seen-before Digimon.

But when Elecmon tackled him in relief, he was back on earth – or Digital Plane as it were – and wanting answers. And Elecmon was more than happy to oblige, giving him a brief rundown as Wormmon helped the caretaker catch enough fish to feed the new and old residents.

It turned out trouble was stirring again. They didn't know what _kind_ of trouble: only that something was attacking anything that moved, uncaring of what lay in its path. Many Digimon had already perished: too weak to fend off the attacker, and many homes destroyed. Others: small enough to hide as the hurricane rushed by, no longer had a home or haven to return to. Survivors had gone to the only place they knew they would find shelter: the Primary Village.

'And then what?' Elecmon groaned, heaving a net of fish, as Wormmon dragged his Nebaneba Net-full behind him. 'If that beast comes here, we're finished. Even Ultimate level Digimon can't stand up to that – that _thing_.'

Elecmon had said nothing about Ken, and now Wormmon understood why. He could only digivolve up to the Adult stage – and DNA-digivolve to the equivalent of a Perfect with Ryo and V-mon – but even that wouldn't be enough. From the sounds of things, they would need Omnimon at the very least, but when Wormmon voiced the possibility, Elecmon bleakly shook his head.

'It's impossible,' he said. 'Something is stopping natural Digivolution, and whatever it is will probably affect the Digivice's power as well. After all, it's that power that created the Digivices of Light in the first place.'

'You mean – ' Wormmon looked at the Fresh Digimon now attacking the nets. There were far too many of them; Fresh Digimon only lived in the Primary Village for a couple of months before Nature evolved them, and in a few months more they were off to their birth-places and kind. And that meant the Fresh hadn't been evolving as they should, they hadn't been growing – and if they couldn't perform the easiest form of Digivolution, then what could others do?

'Leomon has been unable to Digivolve as well,' Elecmon said soberly, waving a paw to the mountains where the legendary protector of File Island lived. 'Understandably he is frustrated, but fortunately his reason has not failed him yet…and fortunate this monster has not reached us.'

Wormmon fumbled about in his mind. Surely there was a way around the problem – or maybe just another way to try. He thought about the things they had seen on their journey, about the Digi-tama of Miracles –

His thought process stopped there. _Digi-tama of Miracles! Of course!_ 'The Digi-tama of Miracles!' he exclaimed aloud. 'If we still had that, we could –' He stopped. Ryo had been the last person to have it, and who knew where Ryo was at that moment. His antennae dropped. Ken had been the one to piece it together, but it only worked for Ryo. It hadn't worked for Ken. And they didn't even have it now.

'The Digi-tama of Miracles?' Elecmon repeated, mystified. Wormmon had forgotten that only Gennai, apart from the tag-tamers and their partners, knew about it. Him…and Milleniummon. 'Never heard of it, but if it doesn't follow the natural Digivolution route, then maybe… Look after the kids!'

He suddenly bounded away like a 'mon flying with hope, but Wormmon could only watch him go sorrowfully and wish things weren't so complicated and mixed up.

'This is supposed to be a world for children,' he told the skies. 'Teeming with children; that was the dream the Creators had.' But Ken had fallen ill: a sickness that had caused a guilt-ridden Ryo to leave searching for a cure and never return. A sickness that had wiped his memories of it so completely no-one could remind him. A sickness that had made him scream like he was burning in the lowest levels of hell and then fall still as though dead.

Those memories still made Wormmon shiver with dread. Remembering how it had happened: how only Ken had seen the spores flying in the air until he'd pushed Ryo out of the way and taken one to the neck. How the rest of them had watched in horror as he convulsed on the ground, screaming so loud his throat eventually began bleeding blood. How they'd, finally, seen the spores flying about the desert before vanishing into a black dust cloud that settled into the sand. How they'd heard the insane laughing as Milleniummon was finally gone.

Ken's sickness…was a sickness that had been caused by Milleniummon's last-ditch act of revenge. And now this new enemy, tearing through the new peace of the Digital World and frightening everyone.

Why were all these Digimon trying to destroy those childish hopes and dreams: the dreams that there could exist a world where children's imaginations were free and a powerful tool (that should never had had to become a weapon), where the worst that could happen was a minor schoolyard scuffle, where they could all live happily in peace?


	7. Forgotten Legends

The children were frightened. It showed in their trembling liquescent bodies, in their opaque wide eyes. And Elecmon could not blame them; he was scared as well, scared enough that his usually smooth fur spiked as it did in a lightning storm.

But there was no lightning that day in Primary Village, just a burning sun that seemed to expose every bit of data in their body: a bright sun that teased them, that said there was no-where left to hide when their doom came.

And their doom would come. File Island was out of the way of the chaos spreading in Server, but anyone could travel to it in a week or so and he'd heard it was a dragon. A dragon could fly to the island in less, and the island itself was small but valuable, and not a place anyone with ill intent could just leave be. It was an unfortunate place to raise children outside times of peace – but, Elecmon reflected, they were too used to the Chosen saving their worlds when things god bad.

The trouble was, things had to get really bad before the Harmonious Ones could be convinced to call the children. They were stubborn that way, and it wasn't necessarily wrong. It was the _Digital_ World after all; they should be able to survive independently of the humans…and yet, when their world spat up some enemy they couldn't defeat, it was the humans who came to their aid. Like Devimon and how he had waged war with the black gears. Or the Dark Masters when they had remade it with the rest of the world. They'd gone out of their way to destroy the Primary Village then, because that was the one place in their world where freedom could not only be made, but born.

It was ironic to think that babies were such a threat, when they had fighting capacity, no way of defending themselves. But it wasn't just the babies, even if destroying enemies before they rose was a habit the evil ones of them often partook in. Perhaps they thought that, by removing the resistance during their more vulnerable times, by the time the eggs were recycled through the Data Stream, their hold over the Digital World would be too powerful to break.

Sometimes though, Elecmon wondered if it wasn't merely because the Primary Village existed on File Island that it was a target. Because the babies of the Digital World were its future, yes, but they were babies. It would take decades before they would grow into a threat, and the Dark Masters had rewritten the basic structure of their world in less. There was something else of value on File Island: something of more immediate importance. And that was knowledge. Knowledge of the Chosen that had come before, the powers that greeted them, the enemies they'd defeated and the secrets they'd uncovered. And there were other records there as well: records that countless Digimon had found and written down, that told of a past that none of them remembered any more, or of secrets that seemed important to no-one.

But they were important. Knowledge was power, and power was the thing that evil coveted, and feared. They sought to either take that knowledge or destroy it, so no-one could use it against them. And sometimes they were damaged so badly that it took millennia for the records to be restored to a readable state. Elecmon knew that, for now, several vital records about the Chosen and their Digimon were missing, in the Data Streams, and due to that the Harmonious Ones were unable to call anyone new to the world. They were even having difficulty in reaching the old Chosen, the ones that had fought against the Dark Masters and Apocalymon. And of the two that had handled Myotismon, one was missing, so that only left Ken.

Elecmon sighed. That kid wasn't much older than Takeru the first time they'd met, and just as innocent. More innocent, in fact, because Takeru quickly lost those bright little eyes that looked as though they hadn't seen anything more dangerous than a soft squishy toy. Ken hadn't seen anything like that though, even if Ken had fought just as much as Takeru. But Ken's battle had been very different; not so much focused on defeating opponent after opponent, but collecting the Digimental of Desire for Ryo who faced down their one and only enemy.

And what Ken _had_ seen of that sort of battle had been lost in sickness and pain – but he was better now, Elecmon reminded himself. Ken, with Wormmon, had come to play with the babies. Quite recently, in fact. But that was still before the news of the Koromon Village's destruction reached File Island.

The Koromon Village was the nearest village to the port, and from there it was a straight sea route to File Island. Still, none of them knew what exactly was carving this path of destruction; they simply knew it was a flying beast weaving havoc. And a flying beast would be upon them in a matter of days. Today, even, since it'd been almost a week since Nanomon and the Hagurumon had transmitted the news.

The babies hadn't explicitly heard the news, but they could feel something bad was coming. And Elecmon could feel it coming too, coming closer –

A sharp wind washed over him suddenly, and the babies screamed and scattered, leaving him, fur spiked and cacking with electricity, alone at the edge of Primary Village to greet the intruder.

'Leave!' he shouted, gritting his teeth against the wind that battered him and straining to see the shadowy winged shape drawing closer. 'The Primary Village is not for villains like you! Leave!'

If his shouts carried over the wind, the flying beast ignored them, simply drawing closer with every beat-like motion of his wings.

'Leave!' Elecmon shouted again, quivering as he stored up electricity in his fur. If it came to it, he'd blast the storm. If it came to it, he'd blast the entire village and himself, so long as it meant his babies would be safe. They were the important ones, and they'd fled from the village the moment the danger had approached. Hopefully they'd fled to the river like they'd been taught, where Whamon could take them to safety.

They weren't in the village anymore anyway, which was the main thing. They wouldn't be in harm's way from _this_ assault.

The beast grew nearer, and Elecmon bared his teeth and let loose the electricity he'd held inside. It, as he'd hoped, torn through the mayhem of wind and hit the beast full on – and, in the moment before it engulfed the other, Elecmon was able to red devil like wings, a blue body and a small figure that was either an oddly shaped tail or totally separate from the flying beast jumping into the air –

And then the beast, or pair, were swallowed in white, and the shockwave knocked Elecmon into an empty crib. The wind returned with a gusto, pushing him and the crib even further back and overturning other things: cribs, blocks and even taking the roof off one of the buildings.

And by the time Elecmon had struggled onto four paws again, the beast, now painfully indefinable as a dragon, had touched down to earth.

'Don't – ' Elecmon wheezed, before collecting himself. 'Don't you dare take another step!'

'You won't be able to stop us,' a voice replied quietly to his demand. It didn't come from the dragon; the dragon's lips hadn't moved, nor had his eyes, staring unblinkingly at his prey.

And, when the speaker stepped out from the dragon's shadow and make himself apparent, Elecmon couldn't believe his eyes. 'You – ' he began, 'Ken was worried.' It seemed like such a pathetic thing to say, but that was all he could manage.

'Ken was worried,' the boy repeated, lips twisting into a smile. 'How sweet; that boy really is too innocent for his own good. Except he's not here.' There was amusement in his tone as well, but it didn't touch his eyes: two stones of brown. 'How about you, Elecmon? Weren't you worried about me?'

'Of course we were worried.' Elecmon stood, carefully, on his two back paws. 'And I'm sorry for attacking you and your – partner? – and all, but there's something dangerous coming right now, and –'

'There's nothing else coming,' Ryo interrupted him. 'There's just you, the village, your precious eggs and us.'

 _The eggs!_ Elecmon thought in panic. He'd been so focused on protecting the children after the fiasco with the Dark Masters, he'd completely forgotten to come up with a contingency plan for the eggs.

'You've forgotten me.' Ryo was frowning, and Elecmon found he could make no sense at all of what was happening.

'Are you even Ryo?' He narrowed his eyes, charging his fur with electricity again.

Ryo – or the Ryo look-alike closed his eyes. 'Yes, I am,' he said, putting his hands into his pockets – and, apparently, that was some sort of signal to the dragon, because it charged. 'And there's something I need to do – and those eggs are in the way.'

The dragon snarled and slashed, and Elecmon screamed in pain as he felt his data try to fix the tear the claws tearing into his skin left behind. The dragon roared over the scream, as though it was a tiny and insignificant thing, and Elecmon's own voice died as the dragon slashed again and again and again.

He thought he heard Ryo mutter "sorry" as the claws stopped, but the Ryo he'd met with sweet little Ken was so different from this one, he'd probably been imagining it.


	8. Seeds that Sprout

Osamu brushed his brother's hair away, the sweaty skin trying and failing and cling to it. If Ken were awake, he'd be laughing about how the hair had a mind of its own, how it managed to look neat even in the wildest of weather, moving as though it was tied into a ponytail despite it being too short – and absolutely nothing like Osamu's own, which never stayed flat no matter how much gel he put in it.

And even if the notion of hair having brains (they were dead cells after all – they didn't even have nuclei) was utterly ridiculous, it was absolutely saturated with Ken's imagination and innocence and, well, Osamu could deal with that. Probably the only illogical things he could believe had some involvement from Ken – and the Digital world had been one of those, until he'd seen proof with his own eyes.

Wormmon was staying with them again, but this time it was to help take care of Ken, who'd slowly grown sick. It had started with the coughs that preceeded a cold and a lack of sneezes that usually accompanied them. Or maybe it had started with all those times Ken was absentmindedly poking or prodding something in the back of his neck. Osamu had checked the area multiple times, but had found nothing out of the ordinary. Still, if nothing was wrong Ken wouldn't touch or rub it: there were much easier things to play with when distracted, like pencils or buttons or zippers or even fingers.

'Can I try?' Wormmon asked, looking curiously at Osamu's hands. Osamu blinked and looked down at his own fingers; he'd picked up a pencil from his desk and had been weaving it through his fingers.

'Sure.' Osamu handed over the pencil and watched four of Wormmon's eight stubby legs try to balance it. It made for a rather amusing sight and Osamu allowed a smile to stretch on to his face, but then Ken mumbled something unintelligible and his attention was snatched away again. So was Wormmons, as the pencil clattered on to the desk, but Ken settled down soonafter and both human and digimon watched his face for a moment before returning to their fidgeting. Wormmon picked up the old pencil; Osamu took a new one.

Ken wasn't going anywhere. It didn't even look like anything worse than the flu; he'd been far sicker before, when he'd come back from the Digital World the first time (or out of the blue, as far as their parents were still concerned). Still, Osamu felt uncomfortable, as though something would happen if he took his eyes off his brother. And maybe Wormmon felt the same way, because even though both of them were wasting time, they weren't moving from Ken's bedside.

At least Wormmon wasn't helplessly crying anymore, as he had been when Osamu had told him Ken was sick. Ken had wanted to tell Wormmon himself why he wouldn't be coming to play for a while, but Wormmon hadn't been in the Primary Village at the time and the sick child had fallen asleep waiting. Osamu hadn't; he knew it was important to Ken that Wormmon knew and he wasn't sick. And since Elecmon (who Osamu had only met one other time through the computer screen) had said Wormmon would be back before too long, Osamu saw all the more reason to wait.

If he'd known he'd have to deal with a crying worm while hiding said worm from his parents, he might have rethought things. Like convincing his parents to buy some ice-cream for Ken, or a new board game they could play together, or a fantasy book Osamu could read to his little brother…all of which they already had, but his parents were more than happy to spoil their sick child.

Of course, that also involved nice warm bowls of soup, interesting office stories from their father and their mother signing while knitting in his swivelling chair, so Wormmon's time with Ken was unfortunately limited to when both parents were at work. Osamu was the luckiest. He could afford to miss school, so long as he kept up to date with his work at home – and that was easy. He did it when Ken slept and, most of the time, finished well before the younger boy was up again. And it had only been a few days since Ken was ordered to rest in bed by their parents: an order reiterated by their family doctor.

What bothered Osamu was that Ken seemed to be getting worse, not better. That the painkillers seemed less effective over the days: that Ken had started whimpering in pain in his sleep and burning up with a fever that didn't seem to want to break. Though it wasn't a dangerous fever and certainly preferable to icy cold skin he'd had the last time, anything that stuck around was bad and Osamu couldn't help but worry.

But, maybe, what bothered him the most was that Ken wasn't laughing and running about over the last few days, and that the house seemed all the more silent and dark because of it.

He laughed quietly to himself. 'When did I get so dependent on my little brother?'

Wormmon looked at him blankly, still trying to work the pencil.

Osamu shook his head. 'It's just a virus.' He said it more for his own benefit, but used the term "virus" instead of flu for Wormmon, who only understood human illnesses in terms of viruses or the wide umbrella of sickness. 'Ken, you drive me crazy when you're sick, you know.'

'Are you going to go on a rampage?' Wormmon asked worriedly.

Osamu stared at his brother's Digimon a moment before he understood. 'Oh, no, I just meant crazy with worry.'

'I see.' Wormmon's antennae dropped a little. 'Will Ken-chan get better soon?'

'Of course. Viruses last for a couple of weeks, tops.' If it was the flu, because Osamu couldn't shake the feeling it had something to do with the way Ken would keep touching his neck, as if there was something buried there.

He didn't know why he didn't as Wormmon; even if Ken didn't know, Wormmon might. But something was stopping him. Some desire to not be proven right, to believe it _was_ just a simple flu – and that they'd laugh over his needless worry the moment Ken was feeling better.

* * *

Oikawa switched his monitor off, letting the room get just a little darker. It didn't go completely blank: he had three computer screens, and one was still active. His work one had drifted into screensaver mode, and the one looking at the Ichijoujis had just now been shut off – since there was no point in watching a sleeping boy and his brother and digimon standing vigil. Only the one surveying the Digital World was still active, still showing the scene of smoke and destruction following a growling dragon and a boy with a sad face.

Akiyama Ryo. Oikawa's eyes narrowed as he watched the boy. He was a problematic one, but it seemed like his plan B was working alright. Caring…what a foolish concept that was. But it worked to his advantage this time. While caring had been what he had based his plan of killing off Ichijouji Osamu and finishing Ken's gateway to darkness on, caring had also been what had ruined it when Mummymon had fumbled his little task. This time though, caring was the driving force, not just a little window of opportunity offered to him.

Just a little while lie, and Akiyama Ryo will repair the damage that had been caused by the first failed plan.

Though he better hurry, because if little Ken's illness was anything to go by, they were running out of time.

* * *

Ryo winced as Cyberdramon unleashed another growl, swiping down and causing another digimon to burst in to data. He didn't like it, not one bit, but it had to be done.

And he didn't like how Cyberdramon enjoyed it either, how he lost himself in the bloodlust as if this was what he was meant to do. But talking to Cyberdramon while he was in this state was no good. Cyberdramon was too preoccupied with his own hunger to hear his Tamer's voice. Maybe if they were partners, it would be different.

Or maybe if he hadn't failed his one and only friend, things would be different.

Except he had failed, and there was nothing he could do now except try to help. Even if that meant doing…this. Ripping apart the Digital World in search for a few stupid eggs that didn't have the decency to show themselves and save the rest of the world from destructions. Primary Village was already gone, covered in ash and torn blocks and broken cradles. A few other villages he hadn't bothered checing the names of had followed suit.

Now they were just aimlessly wandering, Cyberdramon's killing instinct the only thing they had to go by. Ryo didn't even have his conviction, his heart, because it was too easy to wonder if he was doing the right thing at all…and, even if he was, whether the sacrifices were worth the life of his only friend.

 _Hell yes,_ he thought sourly. _I_ swore _I'd protect Ken, and there's_ nothing _that's more important than him._

Once upon a time, he might have thought the other Chosen, or his parents, or his partner. But he didn't have a proper partner – not even Cyberdramon was that – and that was before the Chosen had unmasked themselves as part of the Harmonious Ones' elaborate plan. Before his parents had been revealed to be artefacts of ENIAC – so, in the end, only Ken was real and his true friend.

So, of course, he'd do anything for him.

Still, when he saw what it was costing, all he could do was walk on with his head down and hope it really was the right thing to do. That it really _would_ save Ken.

Cyberdramon roared again: a different roar than before, this one filled with the desire for battle. Ryo looked up. A Kuwagumon snapped its pincers at them. Cyberdramon's claws glinted and he spread his wings.

They really had nothing to do on except for eggs.


	9. Living Nightmares

Primary Village was a living nightmare when Wormmon returned. Worse than the destruction left in the wake of the Dark Masters – and he'd lived through that time, just a Leafmon that Elecmon had hurried into the stream along with a Chibimon and a Koromon. It had carried them to relative safety: they'd remained undiscovered and watched Spiral Mountain slowly crumble under the might of the Chosen Children. They weren't one of the luckier ones who'd joined in the battle against Piemon, but they'd survived.

Later, after the world had been rebuilt, he met Ken. Near the Primary Village, which is why he lived in that forest now, helping Elecmon with the babies but otherwise just enjoying the glow of memories in waning times as he waited for the day he might see Ken again. It had been a few years: "months and months" as Ken had called it, but for Ken it had been less than a week.

Wormmon felt he was starting to feel that shorter time now, between the times he saw Ken and the rest where he lived in the digital world without his human friend. Time had passed much the same as always: playing with the babies, yelling at the Woodmon when they played a not-so-harmless prank, sitting amidst the silent blades of grass and looking up at the sky and remembering…

And then there were the times he'd see the small light on the television blink and he'd know the gate was open. He couldn't sit there all the time of course, but there was almost always someone there: one of the babies often, who'd run to Elecmon who'd fetch Wormmon, or one of the slightly older ones going to school who knew Ken well already. The babies were new and strangers until Ken played with them, but the others they had met during their first adventure. Without a human partner or danger, growth in the digital world was slow.

But times seemed different, when broken egg shells scattered punctured balloons and fluff – the fluff that came from those beautiful building blocks. It was obvious from the forest and the television: the tower that marked the location of Primary Village had been replaced by smoke.

Wormmon had frozen a moment before scurrying as fast as his little legs could carry him, then frozen again on that little hill he'd sat on with Ken so many times and blown bubbles towards the village and its cradles. The cradles had been smashed to bits as well, and the ground was a litter of broken eggshells and woods and a few digimon wandering aimlessly through. Some were searching; some weren't doing even that. Just walking, or floating, their eyes sad and blank.

He was torn: torn in a haze of confusion. Part of him wanted to rush down there and demand answers, while another wanted him to get Ken immediately, so he could digivolve and find the ones responsible. But the largest part of him he found, in the end, wanted him to turn away to the sky that was slowly drinking the smoke and turning grey, and mourn for all those little lives that had been lost.

He did that, letting the tears fall unrestrained from his wide eyes, letting them splatter on the grass he stood upon – the grass he noticed just then was stomped flat as well. It made no sense at all, but it was a tragedy: an injustice that burned – but beyond even all that it was a tragedy. Digi-tama were never supposed to be killed; they were innocent, defenceless, and the future. And Primary Village was the most important place in the Digital World for that future. Unless the world was rewritten, as it had been after the Dark Masters fell, it would take many hundreds of years for those eggs to be recreated. In that time, the digital world could become a far more empty place –

Unless the destruction had spread, or started elsewhere. He didn't know how much time had passed at all since he'd been at his sick partner's bedside.

Was it his fault? For not being there to help? Wormmon shook his head at the thought. Only with Ken's support would he have been any help at all, and Ken was too sick. Better now, but sleeping again when he had left. It was just like seeing Primary Village after they'd been sent away for their safety: surviving, being okay, while others had suffered.

And finally, when he thought he was calm and reasonable and his legs were aching from digging into the hard mat of grass in that tumble of feelings of which sadness, anger and indecision were a part. He found Elecmon quickly enough, but not so quickly that the feeling of eggshells hadn't written themselves into his feet. That hadn't happened during the time of the Dark Masters; the eggs had fallen away like ash, losing their shape along with their lustre, or they'd been frozen like a colourless stone sunken deep into a water bed. That naïve idea that those eggs would come back to life if someone got a crayon and coloured them in had still existed then.

'Elecemon.' It had been meant a cry, but the name had gotten stuck somewhere along the way and come out a whisper instead. Still, Elecmon turned, two fragments of eggshell in hands: two very different eggshells which would never fit together in the same egg.

Elecmon turned a sorrowful eye to the other, and Wormmon wanted to be a Minomon again, or better, a Leafmon, so he could run into the big strong arms and seek comfort. But he was a Child, same as Elecmon. And Elecmon was the one who needed support.

 _But what can I do?_ he asked himself. Unless there was an enemy he and Ken could beat, or something he could reach with his threads or catch with his nets, or a little baby he could scold and show kindness to all at once – but there were none of those things now. Just friends looking for friends, parents and siblings looking for their family, and Elecmon looking for his charges.

'Where is Ken?' Elecmon asked, finally, after silence passed between them. His voice was quiet and flat: almost defeated.

'In the human world,' Wormmon replied, feeling bewildered. Had there been some problem that had called forth the Chosen before…this? Or was it just because he was here, without Ken. But either way the question helped; his own questions came, and he could ask them. 'What happened here? Elecmon –' They got caught in his throat again when he felt the full force of Elecmon's gaze: sorrowful and lost but lacking the raw anger most who knew the custodian of Primary Village would expect from such tragedy.

The Chosen had come upon him after that anger had died and left him a broken mon, but at the beginning he had been burning with undiluted rage. If he had been exposed to the digivices he might have been able to evolve beyond his form and utilise that rage, but against the Perfect and Ultimate digimon of Piemon's army he was nothing more but something to be ridiculed. And that was why he'd survived.

But this time the wounds were fresh and there was none of that rage, none of that desire for blood. Just that deep aching look that no amount of words would be able to do justice no matter how Wormmon tried to explain it to his mind.

And his lips: dry, parted, and barely moving even as fresh words slipped past. The mouth was nothing as a barrier when it was the throat that caught sound, or forced it out. The words struggled, and slowly they got past. 'Ryo…' Wormmon opened his mouth, but Elecmon continued before he could speak. 'Ryo was here…but…'

'Ryo was?' Wormmon repeated, shocked. No-one had seen him since they'd defeated Milleniummon. He and Ken had even planned to look – before Ken had gotten sick again.

Elecmon shook his head, 'He didn't...look or sound like Ryo at all.' But something in his eyes seemed to say otherwise. 'He wanted the eggs. And we're completely powerless against the Chosen.'

'But – Wormmon struggled with his thoughts. 'Ryo wouldn't – ' He wouldn't do something like that. Ryo was strong, yes, and slightly standoffish, but he always protected the weak. He had been like a big brother to Ken, looked after and supported him when Osamu hadn't been there, in the Digital World. He was a little tough at times, but that was just to help Ken grow up. Wormmon knew well Ryo never let Ken do something he didn't think Ken could do. And he wouldn't ever attack someone who hadn't something bad or couldn't fight back…even if they had done something bad, he wouldn't attack the defenceless.

But Elecmon looked so dazed, so confused, that the possibility that it was something else trying to spread distrust was very high, and Wormmon clung to that thought as he continued through the Primary Village. Ken needed to know about that, Wormmon knew, but before that he needed to find something, anything, that could convince them both.

But there was nothing to find at all that spoke either way.


	10. Return to Battle

Ken was lying on the floor in his brother's room with two pillows and a blanket and just watching Osamu work on his computer. It was too lonely in his room when he was awake, and both parents were at work. His mother had volunteered to stay back, but Osamu pointed out that he'd be home anyway, so she reconsidered. It was a good opportunity for the pair of them to just spend some quiet time together.

Though it would have been a better opportunity, Ken thought, if his fever didn't keep coming back. And he'd only been on his feet for a couple days before this one struck him down. Not even enough time to get out of the house and play some soccer in the park. Or go to the Digital World and visit Wormmon and the Primary Village.

'Do you want to play a board game?' Osamu asked, turning his desk chair.

'Hmm…' Ken considered, his throat somewhat dry and scratchy. 'Not really.'

'Cards then?'

Ken blinked at his brother. 'Aren't you working on that programme still?'

'I'm stuck,' Osamu explained. 'I need a break, and it can't be fun you watching me do this stuff.'

'It's fine.' Ken coughed a little and sunk into the blanket, so the top brushed his lips. 'I like watching you work.' And it was the truth, so long as Ken didn't get tired of sitting still and want to play. It made him proud, watching his brother do things he didn't yet completely understand. Proud of his brother.

'I still need the break.' Osamu stretched his hands out in front of him, then opened the top drawer and dug around for the deck of cards he kept at the back. Not exactly hidden, but a deck of cards also wasn't something you kept in plain sight. That would be too distracting. Especially with Ken there as well: the perfect playing partner.

But when you needed a break, you needed a break. Or when you had a little brother that you wanted to spend as much time with as possible if only you didn't have other commitments, then you'd take any and all excuses to have a break.

Though if he dropped everything to be with Ken, he knew it would only grate the both of them.

'Go Fish,' Ken decided finally, and a little hesitantly. It wasn't his absolute favourite game, but it was up there in the top five. Snap was his favourite, and his best. Osamu would always beat him in Memory, though that was fun to. Building houses from the cards was his least favourite activity though; unlike the bubbles they blew from the balcony, the houses of cards always fell, destroyed.

'Go Fish it is,' Osamu agreed, slipping to the floor in front of Ken and adjusting the blanket so Ken could poke his hands out. 'Are you cold?'

'A little hot, actually.' Ken wriggled a little so the blankets were a looser cocoon around him.

Osamu felt his forehead. It was cooler than yesterday, when the young boy had been pale and shivering in his bed. It was cooler than that morning as well, when their mother had deemed Ken healthy enough to get out of bed, but not enough to abandon much-needed rest.

'You still need the blanket,' he cautioned.

'I know.' Ken accepted his cards and slipped them under the blanket.

Osamu blinked. 'What's that for?'

'So you don't look,' was the cheeky reply with a little grin.

And Osamu said as much, ruffling the other's already tousled hair and taking his own hand…then abandoning it when the digital gate on his computer suddenly came up, and open.

'Is Wormmon coming?' Ken asked, excited. But Osamu frowned. He was sure Wormmon had been planning on coming again in the afternoon, after Ken had had a nap and Wormmon had been able to spend some time at his home.

But the discrepancy didn't necessarily warrant worry, so Osamu just opened the video connection between the two worlds. It was a bit staticky but usable. He'd had to adjust the calculations a few times over the weeks already, because the flow of time of the digital world relative to theirs was changing.

In any case, neither of the Ichijouji brothers needed a clear feed to see the expression of Wormmon's face.

'Has something happened?' Osamu asked. Ken asked something similar at the same time, but Osamu's voice was healthier, stronger, and it drowned the other's out.

Wormmon's words were fragmented as well, but the sentiment clear enough. 'Village…destroyed…eggs…Ryo… Words, disconnected, that told a story of them all.

Primary Village was where Digimon were born, Osamu knew. A place filled with Digi-Eggs waiting to hatch, and newborn babies not quite ready to go out into the larger world. Whether it was the village or the eggs that were destroyed…both things were so important to the structure of the world, and to life.

It was nothing like the chicken eggs they froze in fridges and cooked and ate. That was a balance. Never enough to wipe chickens out completely…and it went for most sources of food: chicken meat, lamb, beef… All of those were done in a balance: enough left behind for the population to be maintained naturally.

What Wormmon said…was more like destroying every birthplace and newborn human child in the world. But even then, it took less than a year for babies to be born again. The eggs of the Digital World…Wormmon had once said that the data of destroyed eggs took the longest time of all to recreate, as fragile as it was.

Ken struggled to stand up. Osamu was out of his seat and by his side in a flash. 'You can't go like this!' he cried.

'I have to,' Ken insisted. 'Wormmon needs me…and I'll be fine. I'm feeling much better.' He let go of his blanket and stood, unaided by the world, to prove it.

Osamu had to admit Ken looked better…but it still wasn't well enough to walking all around the Digital World and getting into potentially dangerous situations. 'I'm going with you,' he all but growled.

'But you – ' Ken cut himself off, but Osamu felt he knew what his little brother had been about to say. _You don't have a digivice_. And it was true. He didn't. And he felt completely useless without it too.

He felt like punching a wall, but Ken was there and that was enough to stop him. 'There must be other children who have that digivice,' he said instead, a little louder and more forcefully than he usually would.

'There are.' Ken made his way to the computer, and Osamu found himself moving out of the way. What could he do? Forbid his brother to go? But Wormmon had sounded so desperate that Osamu, not as close as Ken was, couldn't leave the matter alone. But if there were other children… 'But Gennai wasn't able to contact them before. He might not be able to now either.'

Osamu took a deep, somewhat stuttering breath, and gave up. 'Just…be careful.'

'I will.' Ken took a deep breath himself, then took his digivice out of his pocket and held it up to the screen. 'I'll be back soon…and if we find Ryo, I'll bring him back as well. I promise.'

He vanished, not hearing Osamu's reply. But that didn't change those words.

'I don't care about Ryo. I care about _you_ , Ken.'

But Ken had still promised to come back.

Ken lost his balance in the Digital Gate, and tumbled unceremoniously at Wormmon's feet, but he was quickly back up. He would have had to be blind to miss the state of the forest, and of the Primary Village that was beyond it.

'Elecmon says Ryo did this,' Wormmon said quietly, remorsefully.

It took Ken a moment to register that. 'Ryo?' he repeated, dumbly, taking in more and more of the destruction. 'But Ryo would never do…this.'

It looked like something had trampled through the forest, crushed or burnt as many eggs as it could in the village, and then moved on. The path continued, farther than he could see. Up Infinity Mountain probably. That was the main landmark that way.

Wormmon said nothing.

Ken's knees dug into the soft mud as he turned towards his partner. 'Do…you think it was?'

Wormmon shook his head. 'How can I? After all we did together with Ryo and V-mon…'

Ken blinked. 'V-mon!' he cried suddenly. 'V-mon will know where Ryo is!'

They'd already tried V-mon, back when Ryo had first vanished. But this was a different circumstance altogether.

'But, Wormmon…'

Wormmon looked at his partner. He was still somewhat pale, and Wormmon suddenly worried about calling him to the Digital World, especially in such a time. Facing an enemy while sick was dangerous…but he was powerless without Ken, and their entire world was vulnerable without the Chosen children there to defend it.

Wormmon wondered if Gennai was calling the others, right now. If whatever had been blocking them during the Milleniummon incident was now gone…or if it was still there.

'If it's not Ryo…then who did this?' Ken picked up a handful of dirt. It stayed in his hands, clumped together messily. 'A new enemy? Or…'

Ken didn't need to finish that sentence. Wormmon, too, remembered Milleniummon's parting words: that promise to return. And he probably would do something like this, to separate Ryo from the world so he could have him to himself.

Milleniummon _did_ have that funny obsession with Ryo.

'But if Milleniummon back, I'm sure Gennai would have told us,' Wormmon reasoned. Except he'd said nothing about the incident in Primary Village. Why was that? He had the time to send a message, or a messenger, if he'd truly wanted to.

'Maybe…' Ken said uncertainty, his earlier excitement gone. 'We should try visiting him first.'


	11. The Hunting

They never made it to Gennai's place, though they did meet V-mon along the way, in his little hut on the mountain slope where he'd lived since Milleniummon's defeat. It was a good place to wait for news, he explained, since he couldn't digivolve anymore without Ryo there. A good place to wait for hope.

But what Wormmon and Ken had for him wasn't really hope. It was, partially, because if Ryo had been sighted it might mean that Ryo was alive, in their world again. But Ryo sighted would also point the finger of blame at him – and V-mon, from his home, could see the path of destruction carved into File Island.

'I'll come with you,' he said, looking at the harbingers of the news. 'We'll look for the guys who did that – ' He gestures at the smoke and decimation. 'And for Ryo together, right?'

He says them so distinctly, so faithfully, that Ken and Wormmon can't help but nod and agree. Because they want to believe that: that Ryo was somehow framed…because they want him to be somewhere nearby as well.

And it turned out he was nearby. They were almost at the cave they'd used to warp between the island and the mainland when they found him.

But, at first, they hadn't known it was him. There was a dragon: grey and black and scraping at the mountain rock, kicking up cloud of dust. When he saw them, he snarled and bared his fangs – and the two Child digimon immediately jumped in front of Ken, the latter whom stumbled back in fear. But then a voice snapped out, with a noose glowing a soft blue, to ensnare the dragon's neck.

And that voice was Ryo. None of them could mistake it.

V-mon was the first to jump forth, Ken and Wormmon on his heels. But Ryo – looking rather dusty and a little scratched up himself – did not smile on seeing them. He looked surprised, yes, but more a regretful and upset sort of surprised. Like he didn't want them to see him there. But there was no guilt in his expression: the sort that one would have if they'd been caught doing something they shouldn't have been, like stealing in cookies before dinnertime.

But no-one was accusing Ryo of stealing cookies. The crime they put to his name was far more serious.

* * *

Ryo knew he'd see Ken eventually, but he'd hoped that would be after he'd found what he was looking for. Except that egg had proved to be too elusive. And so many other eggs and baby digimon had to pay the price for it. And Ken was there: in front of him, looking paler and a little sweatier than he should have been after the hike, but otherwise fine at first glance.

But he knew not to trust his first glance. He knew what plagued the friend that was almost a little brother to him was a greater demon than that. And looking closer could see more signs. The dark bags under his eyes indicating the sleep that had been eaten away. The very fine tremors that betrayed the effort for Ken to stand like that – whether Ken realised it or not. And then, the thing that only appeared in the Digital World: the thin line of code barely visible at the back of his neck. That thing that was the base of the problem. The problem he was trying to fix. As fast as he could, before –

But that didn't matter right then. What mattered was Ken being there, at that moment. 'Go home, Ken,' he said, steadily, not coming out of the dust that shielded him a little from view, and not letting go of his death grip on the digivice, and the blue light that snaked from it. 'It's not safe for you right now.'

Ken looked surprised at that – and, if Ryo wasn't mistaken, a little hurt as well.

He winced at that. _Sorry Ken_. Not that unsaid words mattered.

'I'm a Chosen too!' Ken cried. 'When this world's in trouble, it's my duty to protect it!' He took a step closer, and Cyberdramon growled, freezing the boy in his tracks again. 'But – Ryo – where -?'

The fated question: where have you been. Which lead to other questions: what have you been doing all this time? How did you come back? Why didn't you come back sooner? What…what is Cyberdramon, and why do you have a lasso around his neck?

'I can't answer that yet,' Ryo said, finally. 'I'm sorry Ken, but…can you just trust me?' But he didn't move. He didn't do anything to coax the younger boy into trusting him. Not like when they'd first met, when Ken had managed to lose his brother in the park and had been scared and lonely. Ryo had offered a hand then. Ruffled that hair. Lead him back to his parents, and safety. But Ryo couldn't do that right then. He couldn't bring Ken and Cyberdramon too close – and it was lucky Milleniummon's dislike for Ken surpassed his rebirth. One good thing about the whole affair anyway.

Ryo's lips twisted at that thought. One of two good things about the affair anyway. But neither of them was worth all the trouble it was causing. Not that it could be fixed just by thinking that.

'Ken, _please_.' It almost sounded like an order. It _was_ an order. Ken had to get away, before Cyberdramon recognised Ken – or rather, what Ken carried. Ryo tugged at Cyberdramon, trying to make him come closer. When the dragon turned to snarl and scrape at the noose, Ryo let up. It wouldn't do any good if that line broke.

'Ryo, what in Huanglongmon's name is going on?!' V-mon…and Ryo didn't know how he'd managed to keep his silence all that time.

No, that was a lie. He did know. The consequences of having a partner like Cyberdramon. The consequences of seeking something with such a menace by his side. Was it the eggs at Primary Village? The lives lost because Cyberdramon couldn't control his blood thirst and Ryo couldn't do anything to sate it except sacrifice that very thing he was trying to save?

Cyberdramon turned his head one side, then another, all the time pulling at the noose that held on his neck. Ryo gripped his digivice tightly but loosened the digital rope a little more. _Cam down, Cyberdramon_ , he said mentally, hoping his thoughts would reach the other. _Don't lose it, please._

'Ryo!' V-mon cried, sounding annoyed at the lack of response towards him. 'Who is this –' The tone of his voice made Ryo take a closer look at V-mon, at the way he was tensed and angry and ready to lash out.

'Don't –'

The warning had barely burst from his lips – and Ken's, who'd always hated seeing fighting no matter who it was against, or for – before Cyberdramon whipped his tail around and knocked the Child digimon to the ground.

'V-mon!' Ken knelt down beside the little blue lizard. Wormmon stood in front of the pair of them: a little worm trying to be a shield against a dragon that would splatter its data on the rocks behind them. But Wormmon had never cared about differences in size and power. What mattered was Ken. And friends.

The unfortunate thing was, Ken mattered to Ryo as well. As did V-mon. But Cyberdramon was – something he didn't want to explain. Circumstances were something he didn't want to go in to.

Or maybe they were all just things he didn't want to admit.

It was also something he couldn't control. The rope of data wouldn't last. If only he was strong enough to just drag Cyberdramon away – because Cyberdramon wasn't moving, and neither was anyone else.

 _Leave. Guys. Please._ _Before something happens._

* * *

Ken was confused. That was the simplest, and perhaps kindest, way to explain it. He didn't understand why Ryo stayed back, in the dust the dragon-like digimon kept on stirring up with that whipping tail and scraping legs –

The tail that had lashed out for no good reason and hit V-mon. Luckily, it looked like only V-mon's pride was bruised, and Ken had to pull his attention away from Ryo for a moment to have a whispered argument with V-mon. Because while Ryo was V-mon's partner, _Ken_ didn't want to see V-mon turn into a pancake by taking on a digimon far stronger than him when it wasn't necessary – and who knew if V-mon still qualified as Ryo's partner, or if the dragon-like creature was instead…

Ken remembered Ryo saying something about that, once upon a time. Or maybe it had been Gennai. He couldn't remember too well. He did remember V-mon had just been temporary as a partner, despite how lasting the bonds of friendship they'd forge would become. If the dragon-like digimon was Ryo's partner now, then V-mon wouldn't be able to evolve.

And if the dragon-digimon was Ryo's partner, then there was no reason to fight him in the first place.

But V-mon was insulted, and wanted to attack. Ken pleaded with him. He didn't mention his hypothesis; V-mon would only be more hurt, though he knew the possibility. Instead he pleaded like he'd done during their old journeys, when V-mon would want to attack a jeering passer-by and Ken would rather send them off with a smile of forgiveness.

V-mon gave a shout and shoved Ken suddenly, and Ken felt himself tumble over Wormmon with a wince. 'V-mon!' he cried, before he was shoved again – this time by Ryo because there was no-one else nearby who was shaped and sized like a human and Wormmon's cry seemed suddenly far away.

He curled a little on the ground and coughed, and Ryo cursed somewhere above him, before shouting: 'Cybedramon, st – STOP!' The last word was a desperate, anguished scream. And Ken thought he heard V-mon somewhere in there as well. 'V-mon! Stop! Stop!'

Ken lifted his face, smeared with soil. By some miracle, it had avoided his eyes…but maybe that would have been the kinder situation. From there, he could see the dragon lifting his claws, scraping down trees and rocks like they were nothing at all. There could have been other digimon in there. The dragon looked like he didn't care at all.

And where were V-mon and Wormmon? He couldn't see either of them.

'Come on.' Ryo was behind him, taking his wrist and dragging hi roughly, quickly. But his voice held none of the anguish it had before. It was flat. Even. Like after all those battles, all those encounters with Milleniummon. Like something inevitable had happened again. Like something unavoidable.

'But Wormmon – ' Ken tugged back, hardly thinking about what he was doing. The cloud of dust had risen in the dragon's frenzy, thicker than before, making it hard to see. But something green –

'We can't do anything about that.' Like when they'd thought they'd beaten Milleniummon. Except Ryo. Ryo had said Milleniummon would only come back. In that same tone. Defeated. Just waiting for the inevitable.

Ken turned around. 'What…do you mean?' His voice shook – and, unknown to him, his body shook as well, strained too far. But adrenaline was running through his veins now, keeping his eyes sharp and his thumping heart deaf to his ears. 'Ryo, what's going –' He cut himself off when the dragon roared: a terrifying roar that just made him want to curl up into a ball and disappear. He couldn't do that though. He was a Chosen, and that dragon was destroying everything.

_Did he destroy Primary Village too?_

'Ryo…' It was almost a whimper, from his lips, but he forced the words out anyway. 'Did he…that…the village…'

Ryo pulled him back a bit, until there were three thick boulders between them and the dragon. That wouldn't help much, with the way the dragon was cutting through them, but Ken allowed himself to be pulled. Ryo had been with that dragon before. Ryo might know something.

But that dragon had attacked V-mon and Wormmon. And Ryo had had some sort of noose around its neck. Was he a prisoner, then? That they'd managed to enrage somehow.

Ken's head was starting to hurt.

And Ryo wasn't looking at him now. Just talking, voice low, like a sigh. 'Cyberdramon is…my true partner.'

'That – ' Now Ken could feel himself shaking, in Ryo's arms. 'But why is he attacking everything!'

* * *

'But why is he attacking everything!'

Ryo did not want to answer that question. That meant destroying all they'd accomplished together. All Ken thought they'd accomplished together – because Ryo knew the truth. They'd never accomplished anything, except get a kind little boy involved in something he shouldn't have been. And he couldn't even fix it.

Ken had that _thing_ buried in his body because of him, because Milleniummon had wanted Ryo and Ken had just happened to be there, in the way. And he couldn't even find that one egg that would help him, out of all of those.

'Look, Ken,' he said finally, taking the boy by the shoulders. 'You have to go back to the real world. And don't come back here. Ever. I'll come and see you again, and this time I'll save –'

Ken's scream interrupted him. A long, drawn out scream that sounded just like the one Ken had let loose in the desert, when Milleniummon's final blow had struck him as he shoved away Ryo. And he jerked, that same way, even as Ryo spun around and tried to support him.

They sunk to the ground together, Ken's eyes screwed tightly shut and his body trying to curl into a soft ball. Ryo looked around frantically – but that was pointless, he knew. The right digi-egg wasn't going to just pop out of the ground _now_ , when it hadn't before.

_Where the hell is that egg?!_

'Ken…' The whisper was weak, hesitant. 'Come on, Ken.'

Ken held his breath for a moment, then let it out, muscles relaxing. 'My head hurt suddenly,' he said, voice tired and scared and shaking. 'And it got dark suddenly.'

'Don't worry about it.' Ryo sat back on his heels. It was a small relief, but he knew it would only get worse without that egg. Was Cyberdramon making it worse as well? He didn't know.

Ken opened his eyes slowly, as though being roused from a nightmare. The sound of Cyberdramon's snarls filled the silence. 'I always thought…' His brow furrowed. '…your partner would be kind. Like you, Ryo-san.'

 _But I'm not kind, Ken._ Ryo thought. _I'm willing to sacrifice this world for you_.

He didn't say that out loud though. 'Cyberdramon is…hard to control sometimes,' was all he said. 'He destroys everything he sees. That's why you have to leave. You're only in danger if you stay.'

Ken sat up, shaking his head lightly. 'I can't leave,' he said. 'I came here with Wormmon, looking for Ryo-san…'

The way it was phrased implied he hadn't found him, though Ryo wondered if Ken was aware of that fact. If Ken stood, Ryo was sure he'd need some support to stay standing. If he tried walking, he'd need help, or he'd fall after a few steps. But Ken didn't seem to notice those limitations. He just tried to pull himself up, reaching out and placing a hand on the nearest rock for support.

Not that it helped. The rock was suddenly gone, slashed away by Cyberdramon, and Ryo was shouting something and aiming his digivice, a new digital rope shooting out to wrap around the other. And Cyberdramon roared, a roar that made Ryo wince and Ken, back as a heap on the ground, to cover his ears. He roared in frustration and hunger and maybe even pain, thrashing against the binds. But he'd tired himself a little. Ryo was stronger now. He could restrain him.

'Stop!' Ken screamed, and Ryo's grip on the rope slackened a little. Not enough to let Cyberdramon loose though. Not enough to quieten that roar. Ken's voice fell a little after that, but his eyes were wide open now. Confused and afraid: just as Ryo knew Ken would be, if they ever found themselves in this situation. And there was pain and shadows as well, but Ken was oblivious to those. Ken was always oblivious to those, otherwise he wouldn't have even come. 'If he's your partner, then why..?'

Ryo turned away from Ken, from that face that made him want to toss the digivice down and sweep Ken up and go somewhere where nothing would touch the two of them – if he could. But that was impossible. That had always been impossible. He couldn't leave Cyberdramon anyway. Just like Ken wasn't leaving Wormmon.

'Ken… Wormmon's gone.'

It might be a bit of a white lie. It might not be. It wasn't impossible for a swipe from Cyberdramon to kill a Child stage digimon. It was the only way Ken would…might…leave.

Or Ken might become filled with vengeance and change. But that would save him too. Either way… Though leaving wouldn't save him. Leaving would just give time. Time Ryo could use to find that egg without the digital world accelerating the growth of that thing buried inside Ken's body…

But before that would come the tears. And he heard rather than saw the first one fall: a soft splash between Cyberdramon's roars and struggles. Ryo closed his eyes – then opened them again as Cyberdramon fell quiet and a bright light suddenly appeared.

_Can it be..?_

Ryo opened his eyes hesitantly. It was there. A glowing digiegg rising out of the rubble of rock Cyberdramon had just destroyed. Like a flower, with the symbol of kindness carved upon its face. 'The digimental…' he breathed, and nothing else moved. Not Cyberdarmon, caught in the spell same as he. Not Ken, yet to pull himself off the ground again.

Ryo grabbed it, gritting his teeth as he felt its scorching heat through his gloves. It didn't like him. That much was obvious…but it had the symbol of kindness on it, and he was anything but kind. He knew that. And it didn't have to like him. It just had to accept Ken.

'Ken.' His voice shook as he knelt down beside the other: the boy who was like a little brother to him, the little brother he'd never had by blood. 'Here; take this. It'll make you better, I promise. It'll make everything better.'

Ken stared blankly at him. 'Wormmon?' he asked.

He wasn't fully aware. He didn't sound fully aware, and his eyes were slightly glazed, now that the adrenaline had seeped away and everything had caught up. He was caught in another bout of sickness, but this one faster, more brutal – and the digital world would only continue to make it worse.

But now the digimental he'd been looking for was in his hands. He just had to get Ken to take it. But he needed both hands. It was heavier than it looked, and burning so he had to juggle it a little: more on one hand, then more on the other. Otherwise he'd drop it and it'd shatter and so would the only hope he had.

'Wormmon will be fine with this too,' he said. Another white lie, possibly. Or maybe Wormmon would be fine with that. Or without that. Lies taking the place of doubt. That's what he was doing. All to convince Ken to take the digimental that would save his life.

Ken looked at the digimental a moment, then lifted a shaky hand up. Ryo thrust the digimental under the fingers, and the tips curled around it. Ryo let go, and there Ken was, holding the thing that would set everything right again.


	12. Pocket of Worlds

Osamu stared hard into the computer screen, even if it would tell him nothing. And it didn't. Whatever was happening in the digital world, to his brother and to Wormmon, it was beyond Osamu's sight and touch. All he could do was wait in front of the screen as he was doing now. Wait…for his little brother to come back home.

And maybe, in the meantime, work out what was going on with the connection. He'd thought he'd fixed it: collaborated the different flows of time so the two spaces would be perfectly connected, but that last transmission had been barely understandable. Why would that happen? Unless something had changed the flow of time somewhere…but he didn't see how that was possible.

If the flow of time had changed, did that mean the time Ken spent away from him would be even greater?

Osamu sighed, and gave up on his calculations. Without data, they were senseless, and he had a conclusion, a reason as to why his original calculations had fallen through. They'd been fine when the two times had been flowing at the pace he had calculated, and they'd been fine for a while. Somewhere along the line the flow of time of one of their worlds had changed, and that was when the quality of the video feed had begun to decline. If he had worked out the change then, maybe he would be able to see more than just static on the monitor now – but he hadn't. And now he had to pay for it.

His head hurt looking at the static for too long. He sighed again, then leaned back in his swivel chair. It creaked a little; it was a sound he liked to listen to when something was bothering him. And if Ken was in his room at the time, he would laugh at it as well: at the sound, and at his big brother's silly little habits…

But Ken liked Osamu's silly little habits, because they, as Ken said, made Osamu himself. And, for that reason, Osamu liked it too. Because Ken knew Osamu best, after maybe Osamu himself – but Osamu was inclined to think Ken knew more about himself than he did, just like he knew more about Ken than Ken. But in that case he thought the one who knew Ken best was Wormmon: that friend from another world that had shared something with Ken that Osamu, who couldn't go to that world, never would.

He closed his eyes. If he _could_ go to that other world, he could see what was happening and watch over his brother, maybe even _help_ instead of being stuck like this. It was laughable, almost. Here he was: Ichijouji Osamu, child prodigy, stuck behind a computer screen waiting for his little brother to save the world and come back to him.

'Are you jealous?'

'What? No, of course not – ' He blinked. Who was that who had spoken? He looked around, but all there was was his computer screen, filled by the digital gate that would tell him nothing. 'Who are you?'

'A digimon.' It was a female voice, he realised. Like an adult human. Not like Wormmon who sounded like a big brother, but still a child. 'I am on the other side of this gate.'

Her voice was clear as well, not interrupted like Wormmon's last message had been. 'You're not in the Digital World.'

'You're a sharp one.' She didn't sound surprised. 'I'm in the home of another human. My…partner, if you will.'

Like Wormmon was to Ken, Osamu assumed – though he wondered why the hesitation before saying so. It didn't seem wise to call the speaker out, particularly when, if it was human computer to human computer, the other side was essentially hacking into his system. Unless it was an emergency – but people didn't tend to beat around bushes in emergencies.

'Why are you contacting me?'

'I was wondering who had a Digital Gate open on their computer,' the other replied. 'I don't know of anyone else who can open one.'

Osamu frowned. 'All Chosen can,' he said, before hesitating. 'Can't they?' Ken really had no way of knowing: only that _he_ could open them.

'They cannot,' the digimon said. 'But any Chosen can pass through an open Gate.'

'Your partner wants to use this Gate,' Osamu said flatly. 'Why?'

'Don't you know what's happening in the Digital World right now?' the digimon asked, sounding coy.

Osamu's breath caught. No, he didn't know – but he could guess. Nothing, everything, the worst possible scenario keeping Ken away, in danger still…

'Where's Ken?'

'In the Digital World.' The voice was matter-of-fact, but Osamu thought he could hear something else in it. Maybe it was because he inherently distrusted her. He didn't know why, but he was sure there was something else, something she wasn't telling and he didn't want to hear. Unless she offered something he couldn't resist in return. 'We can take you to him.'

'How?' he asked, after a brief pause. 'I don't have a digivice.'

'With the Gate already open, you don't need one.'

That caught Osamu off guard. He didn't need one? But he'd tried to go to the Digital World before, holding Ken's hand…and even Wormmon's appendages. That hadn't worked.

'It's just a minor patch to the programme that runs the gate,' the digimon continued to explain. 'It'll let you pass through the Gate and enter –'

'What will you get out of this?' Osamu interrupted. He didn't think she was doing this out of good will. Unless she was and it was just his lack of friends and trustworthy companions talking. But Osamu didn't have much use for friends. He had his family and his little brother and even the more recent addition of Wormmon and they were enough for him.

'We're worried,' the digimon said simply. 'My partner is sick and cannot travel to the Digital World, despite a Gate nearby. We just want to know what's happening.'

Osamu's brow furrowed. That sounded fair and truthful enough, but… 'How do you know something is wrong?'

'Instinct,' the digimon said. 'We can sense when our world is in danger.'

Osamu closed his eyes. He had no more pressing questions but he did have a choice. Who knew what the patch could do, what its true purpose was – but hadn't he wished so many times, especially now, that he could follow Ken into the Digital World? The real risk was that the patch would lock the gate – but if it did do that, he was confident enough in his own computer skills to undo that, and perhaps even use it to his advantage. So long as he had a starting point – because the Digital Gate had proved to be so complex a thing he hadn't found one of those. 'Alright,' he said. 'Send the patch to me.'

'Hold on a moment.' The voice distanced itself a little, and then returned with the clicking of computer keys. 'I just need to add a little something so we can see what's going on in the Digital World from here.' There was just clicking for a few moments. 'Don't worry; this won't affect the core at all.'

Osamu's mail icon flashed and he opened the file, running his eyes over the code. It was complex, though not as complex as the gate. He dissected it lightly; it would take days or weeks of work to go through it thoroughly, but he could see how it fit into the main programme, and that it wouldn't crash his computer. That was good enough, and he loaded the patch.

The moment it was fully loaded, white light burst out of the screen and engulfed him.

* * *

'Who are you?' a voice asked him. This time it was male, though equally unfamiliar.

Osamu blinked, trying to make something out. He failed, though he thought he saw a slightly darker shadow. He blinked some more.

'Well?'

He'd forgotten the question. 'Ichijouji Osamu,' he said. 'And you are..?'

'Ichijouji…' the voice repeated, before answering the question asked of him. 'I am called Gennai.' There was the sound of a sigh, and then: 'I assume you came because of your brother.'

Osamu did not like that tone. Not at all. But he had heard about Gennai from Ken, and while Ken's judgement on character wasn't the best, Wormmon had spoken about Gennai as well and seemed to be a better judge. 'Has something happened?' he asked, concerned, trying to look towards the voice. It proved difficult because his body seemed to have lost its sense of gravity. Instead of standing, he floated. And his sight was slow in returning. 'How is Ken?'

'That is a difficult question,' Gennai said, his tone saying nothing more. 'It might be easier to explain where we are and how first.'

'Is he okay at least?' Osamu begged. He needed to know about Ken first, no matter how important everything else seemed. 'Please, just tell me –'

'He is unconscious, but physically unharmed.'

Osamu signed in relief. 'Okay,' he said. 'Okay.'

'Now, this place…' Gennai sighed again. 'I suppose the easiest way to explain this place is a pocket between dimensions, but it's less a pocket and more the entire coat.'

'Come again?' It was a rather bizarre analogy. 'Do you mean the pocket is large enough to connect the whole of two dimensions, instead of just a part?'

'Exactly that,' Gennai said, as though it were obvious. 'Dimensional pockets are the framework of Gates, and they are usually small and unconnected from other pockets. There are specific places which are connected by these pockets, and everywhere else is supposed to be distinct, not connected to any other world.'

'So with the pockets larger and connected, places that shouldn't be connected now are?' Osamu asked, still looking around. He could see more shadows now, he thought. Gennai was awfully small if he was looking at the right shadow. 'But so long as the connections aren't open, they shouldn't matter, should they?'

'Theoretically,' Gennai said. 'But the Gates are only locked from the end of the human world. Keys to temporarily lock the Gates do not exist in the Digital World.'

'The digivices?' Osamu frowned. 'So that's why other Chosen can't open the Gates whenever they want?' He didn't think that was a particularly foolproof system, but it lowered the potential for abuse. 'But surely you could open it from your end? Ken was sick!'

'I am aware of that.' Gennai sounded apologetic. 'However, that power was taken out of our hands. Something else is controlling the Gates now. We could only hope that one of the digivices capable of opening the Gate from the human world would do so. Unfortunately, there were only three, and only one tried to open the Gate.'

'That was Ken.' Osamu frowned. Three people in the whole world. That wasn't the greatest in an emergency situation. 'But what was the problem in the Digital World?'

'I don't know much about that I'm afraid,' Gennai said. 'Pockets are supposed to be small and stable. Enlarged and connected like this, they are very unstable. Somehow I was swallowed in and stuck here. I bumped into one of the TVs which was useful, but you are the first talking life I've seen.'

'That sounds suspicious,' Osamu frowned, 'like someone locked you up here on purpose.'

'Probably,' Gennai agreed. 'It's meant I've been unable to release the other digivices that can unlock the Gates.'

'There are more?' Osamu blinked at that.

'Not until just before you came.' There was some wry humour in your voice. 'Your brother is partially to thank for that. Those digivices were sealed away with certain artefacts called digimentals. Each possess a certain trait. Your brother found – or was given – the digimental of kindness. His touch released three new digivices.'

Osamu could see them: one yellow, one blue and one red, in Gennai's hands. There was also a fourth one: completely black, but somehow that one felt familiar.

Gennai caught his gaze. 'This belonged to Ken,' he explained.

'Belonged?' Osamu repeated the past tense, before angering. 'You said nothing happened to Ken!'

Gennai closed his eyes and sighed. By that point, Osamu could make out the creases in the old man's forehead – if he was a man, that was. Ken hadn't sounded too sure when he'd described him, and Wormmon hadn't known either. 'I said he was physically unharmed,' Gennai said. 'However there is a dark presence inside of him, and coming into contact with the digimental was too much for his mind.'

'You – he – ' Osamu's head spun.

'But he is safe, and if the dark presence can be removed, he will recover fully.' He continued on before Osamu could interrupt again. 'I needed you to hear first what trouble our world is in. That dark presence – it is a fraction of the same power that had created this large unstable pocket between the worlds. It is the same thing that is disturbing the connections, the flow of time between worlds.'

'Ken's sickness – you knew about it?!' Osamu's eyes narrowed. 'And you let it go on? My brother is not some tool for –'

'I know.' Gennai sighed heavily. 'The truth is, we don't know how to defeat such a thing, except defeating the source. And we thought we'd done that. Ichijouji Ken and Akiyama Ryo – but we were wrong.'

Ryo… Ken and Wormmon had been looking for Ryo.

'Instead, we brought a digimon who should never gain more power to his Chosen, and a boy who should never have touched the darkness into contact with it.'

Yelling and screaming would accomplish nothing. Osamu clenched his fists. 'So Milleniummon is Akiyama's partner. And Ken has a bit of Milleniummon stuck in him.'

'You know about Milleniummon?' Gennai seemed a little surprised, before shaking his head. 'That makes things easier, since there is no-one who can now explain things to you.' He closed his eyes again. 'You must go back. Whatever fortune brought you here…I hope it can take you both back.'

'Both?' Osamu repeated. 'Is Ken here as well?' Though Gennai hadn't been entirely truthful at the beginning, so why tell the truth now?

'I put him in my bed.' There was a ghost of a smile on the old man's lips. 'My whole house made it here after all.'

Osamu couldn't see a house, but perhaps it was there. He hadn't been able to see Gennai originally after all.

'I haven't lied, Ichijouji Osamu.' There was pain in the man's tone, and Osamu found himself listening. 'If I had said things in another order, you would not have listened. And I needed someone to listen.'

'Not me,' Osamu surmised. 'Are you going to tell me I can't help my brother?'

He supposed that was marginally better than having the power to help and failing. Maybe.

'You can hold on to your brother's digivice.' Gennai tossed it to him, and Osamu caught it: the black one that had caught his attention before. 'And if you wouldn't mind doing foolish old guardians a favour, you can take these three as well.' He gestured at the ones in his hands. 'In your world, they will find their Chosen more easily.'

'Help other children into your world?' Osamu questioned the wisdom in that, and he noted that he really should be angrier. But something was holding him back. Something that hadn't been there when distrust had made him wary of the female digimon that had given him the patch to apply to the Gate. Maybe it was Ken's trust in this man. Maybe it was Wormmon's: Wormmon who had only Ken's best interests at heart.

But this man had known about what had happened to Ken, what was happening, and had let it get this far.

'The digimentals were well hidden,' Gennai said. Maybe he was thinking along the same lines. 'And they are of no use to Milleniummon. I never imagined he would go after them. That he was going after them.'

Osamu had no choice but to accept that.

'And if I had known the fate that awaited those children, I would tried someone else. Again and again until I found the ones who could win without losing themselves. Those were always the Chosen.'

He really did sound sorry. Osamu didn't think anyone could fake that sort of voice. 'And what will happen to Wormmon? If I take this?'

'Wormmon will slumber here, with the digimental. He is badly hurt.'

'I see.' Osamu was sad to hear that, and a little guilty. He hadn't thought to ask about Wormmon at all. 'And my brother? What will happen to him?' _Something bad…don't say something bad…_

'Hopefully nothing, but I can't say for sure. Nothing like this has happened before.'

So Ken just happened to be the unlucky one. Osamu's nails dug into his palms but he ignored the pain. It wasn't fair, that Ken of all people…

And there was absolutely nothing he could do about it now. Just keep that digivice safe for him, in that ironic twist of fate that handed him the thing again. And Osamu couldn't regret Ken getting his hands on it. Not ever. Because Ken had found a precious friend, something worth fighting even with his dear brother about. Something that important – how could Osamu ever deny that? Even if this selfish part of him wanted to, because of what it was costing now…

Not that any of that mattered, when the past couldn't be rewritten. 'I – ' Maybe it hit him then, because tears began to form. 'I want my brother.' _To be safe…_ but that was a bit of a moot point now.

'You can take him with you,' Gennai said. 'I don't know how you came through without a digivice, but the Gate is still open. You can return through there, and your brother with you.'

'Can't I – ' _Do something more?_

'I'm sorry. I am not the one who decides who can become a Chosen.'

* * *

Osamu must have lost consciousness at some point again. He didn't know when, or how; he only remembered Gennai's last words echoing in his mind. And then suddenly he was on the floor in his bedroom and his mother was shrieking something.

He crawled to his knees. Ken was a few paces from him, face down on the carpet and unmoving. The four digivices were between them, but Osamu shoved those out of the way and crawled to his brother. His body protested, like it was his soul in limbs and clothes too big for him, but he managed it. And his brother looked different as well: a little bigger, a lot hollower –

But Osamu didn't take any of that in at first. Only that it _was_ his brother, and that he was unconscious but still alive.


	13. Chosen

Two years had passed by in the space of mere minutes. That was what he theorised from his mother's shocked babbles and later concluded from more concrete materials. Two years…gone while he'd been in that pocket between worlds. And in his room had been a computer that wouldn't shut off: the only thing he'd left behind.

He and Ken…both of them had been missing for two whole years. And now they were back, from seemingly nowhere and Ken was…like he was. Still unconscious even months later at the start of the new school year. And no-one but Osamu knew why.

He couldn't say, of course. His parents and police had seen his computer screen with the Digital Gate open on it and yet they hadn't been able to see the Gate. If he'd told them they'd been in another world he'd probably be whisked away or assigned a psychiatrist or something like that. He didn't need any of those things. Nothing was wrong with him.

As for what was wrong with Ken, no doctor that had seen him had managed to come up with an explanation. All they could do was give him a bed and monitor him, and that was exactly what they did. And Osamu, once the police and the media had determined he couldn't explain that two year disappearance, was left to go back to the life he'd been living before.

And because those two years had only passed for his physical form, the only thing that made that task hard for him was Ken. He couldn't rely on him anymore to force him to take breaks when he needed to, to play things with him without the expectation that everything he did was above other people – because if he was some super human being, his brother wouldn't be lying in a hospital bed. People wouldn't have to look at him with misplaced pity. The media wouldn't get to play with his new title: "the tragic boy genius".

Those things had never frustrated him as much as they did in Ken's absence. And it seemed like even more people recognised him than ever, came up to him when he wanted to be alone, with his thoughts. And in his room where he _was_ alone, there was that Digital Gate that still hadn't closed and that made no more sense now than before. He analysed it, poured more time into it than his studies because it was so _important_ – but to no avail. He couldn't synchronise the equations for the flow of times in their two worlds. And he couldn't manipulate the Gate at all. And the patch had somehow eroded, as though it were a nicotine patch instead of a computer one. It was long gone by the time he could check it, leaving no trace behind.

So everything he could do in regards to the Digital World was a futility. The Gate managed itself and resisted all efforts to decode it. Ken's digivice remained in his pocket but unresponsive, and without a response or the patch he'd initially used he had no way of going back through the Gate. He couldn't remake the patch either from memory, though not from lack of trying. He had tried, but nothing had stuck to the Gate at all.

And then there were those other three digivices he carried everywhere like excess baggage he couldn't afford to part with in case of some off chance…

And then one day, the first day of the new school year, chance did smile upon him.

He'd been passing by a local middle school on the way to the Fuji TV headquarters and seen a soccer game in progress. At the beginning, it was only nostalgia. He and Ken used to play like that. Ken loved soccer more than him, and he was good at it too.

But that was the only reminder of Ken. All those kids playing were loud; Osamu could hear those laughs from across the street. Different sorts of innocence, he mused. Ken was innocent as well, but never had he made as much noise as those boys were making now.

Osamu shook his head and moved on. Odaiba was far from Tamachi and he was glad, but they were also the sorts of people who would chase him for an autograph if they recognised and the media had a long reach. And if Fuji television wanted him the word would only continue to spread. He wondered if there was something he could do that wouldn't be rude to escape from that net. Somehow, before he knew it, he was in too deep.

He enjoyed studying, learning things – and, sometimes, he did enjoy the fame as well. But at other times it was too much. Odaiba was far away for now – but the world got smaller the more one learnt of it and it wouldn't be so far before long. Not unless something changed. It wasn't like the Digital World which seemed to expand as well and elude him. If it wasn't for everything else, it would have been an enjoyable intellectual challenge for him.

But if it hadn't been for Ken and a destiny he shouldn't have been fated to have, Osamu would never have known about the Digital World in the first place. And then maybe he would have gone on blind: taking his brother for granted and apologizing when he overstepped the line, and then just continuing on like that. Or Ken would never have talked back to him, argued with him and then been rightfully upset with him. Things might never have changed for the better. They wouldn't have had the Digital World to give Ken something Osamu didn't, and apparently couldn't have. And Osamu might never have almost been run over by a car…not that it seemed like such a big deal any more. It already seemed so long ago.

The soccer ball rolled in front of him. It looked like someone had kicked it out of the schoolyard and across the road, and Osamu stopped it with a foot. Someone was running towards him and the ball: the boy who'd been loudest of all. He was shouting and waving his arms as well, as though Osamu would run off with the ball. But he had a kind expression. Osamu knew kind expressions well. Ken almost always had one. This boy's was different: more open, and somehow more brash as well, but still kind. Fleetingly, Osamu thought he would have been an interesting person for Ken to meet. But that wouldn't be happening for a while, if it ever did. And Odaiba was still a far place for now. Such a meeting would be unlikely to be anything more than coincidental.

Osamu picked the ball up and handed it to the other when he neared. The boy had no recognition on his face when he accepted it, but he had an easy grin. The sort of grin he looked like he gave everyone; he'd been giving it to the boys he'd been playing with just moments ago. 'Thanks for the ball,' he said. 'Want to play a game with us?'

'No thanks,' Osamu said, marvelling at how easily he'd called a stranger to play – unless he was mistaken and the boy _did_ recognise him.

'Is there something on my face?' The boy didn't sound insulted or frightened; simply surprised.

'I'm sorry.' Osamu hadn't realised he was staring.

The boy grinned wider. 'I'm famous already.'

Osamu was sure there was a context he was missing there.

'Sure you can't play? There's plenty of time before dark.'

'I need to go somewhere,' Osamu explained.

'Ah, okay.' He looked disappointed. 'You stopped the ball nicely.'

Osamu looked at his feet. He hadn't noticed. 'My brother's the soccer player of the family,' he found himself saying. 'Maybe…you two will play someday.'

'Looking forward to it,' the boy said, giving him a quick bow of thanks before running off at the others' impatient shouts. Osamu wondered why he'd said those last words to the other. He looked more closely; there was nothing remarkable about his style as well, except for the passion he put into his game. But still Osamu couldn't help but think again it would be interesting to see him beside Ken.

On a whim he looked at the device in his pocket: his brother's digivice. This time there was a soft blinking dot on the screen, and Osamu stared at it a moment before digging around for the other three. The red and yellow ones were still inactive, but the blue one's screen had come alive. It had a matrix now, and a blinking dot: this time purple instead of the blue one on Ken's digivice. Osamu held the blue digivice in both hands, but nothing else happened.

He wondered if that meant the boy who'd come for the ball had been Chosen. They were all still there, behind the school fence, kicking the ball round again. It would be an easy matter to call him over, even without a name. Easy to just offer the Digivice for a moment and see if there was any reaction. But Osamu didn't want to do that. He told himself it was because the Digital World hadn't proven to be a good judge at all. It had chosen a child to partner with one of the most destructive forces known to digimon-kind. And it had chosen a boy with too kind a heart for battle to fight.

He told himself it was because he didn't trust the judgement of the Digital World, that he would wait and observe: find out more about the Digital World and those digivices before he handed someone's destiny to them. But that wasn't it. Not really. A part of him was jealous, that he couldn't enter the Digital World, that he didn't have a digivice of his own. And it was for good intentions too, but they saying went that the road to hell was paved by good intention.

He put the blue digivice back into his bag and walked away.

* * *

Behind several monitors, a man watched Ichijouji Osamu carry the tools of destiny away and smirked. He couldn't tell exactly what had happened, but he could guess. Ichijouji Osamu wanted the digivice himself, wanted it to respond to him so he could enter the Digital World.

The patch had worked to an extent, but not in the way they'd planned. Still, the worlds had been shaken. Time had skipped ahead by two years and the minds of most had been filled with false memories to compensate. Even their bodies had aged in the false progression of time: little Ken's hair had grown longer, his body taller and more frail as it slept away, in his coma. The changes were less obvious for one of Osamu's age, but they were still there: the signs of someone growing into maturity, into their teens – the last step before adulthood.

But maybe the Digital World already recognised Osamu as an adult, and that's why they refused him. No matter, Oikawa thought. His plan was to open the Digital World Gate for adults, and Osamu would be a willing pawn in that endeavour.

Things could start moving forward. Things _would_ start moving forward.


End file.
